[Aldor-l] Compiler development

[Bill Page]

Ralf Hemmecke writes:
>
> | >> Well, isn't there a way in SVN to use 'external sources' so that
> | >> your repository would never contain the Aldor source tree, but
> | >> only a reference to it? So the question of distribution would be
> | >> settled.
> |
> | Bill Page asked:
> | > Ralf, did you find a way to do this? Do you know if this approach
> | > is used in any open source projects?
> |
> | http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.4/svn.advanced.externals.html
> |
> | I haven't used that myself, but Christian has in his AldorUnit project.
> | He references his own LibModel project.
>

On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 1:04 PM, Gabriel Dos Reis wrote:
> I use it for personal repos.  It works well, as long as you don't
> push too much the envelop.  I wish SVK had better support for it.
>

Notwithstanding that IANAL probably applies to everyone likely to
comment here, I would like to know the opinions of the participants in
this email list concerning the proposed use of SVN external sources.
Does this "technical solution" really provide a way to avoid
incompatible license restrictions? For example, would including such
an external definition in the FriCAS and/or OpenAxiom repositories
that points to a separate Aldor repository really make it more
convenient to retain two separate incompatible licenses for panAxiom
and Aldor? Certainly it would be nice to do one checkout, configure,
and make to get a fully operational version of panAxiom+Aldor, but ...

The natural next step would likely be to begin conversion of Axiom
SPAD code to Aldor to create a true
"2nd generation" version of the panAxiom library. Of course doing this
would create something that could not exist except by the combination
of at least two projects with nominally incompatible licenses. In this
case what would be the status of a binary distribution of
panAxiom+Aldor? Would such a binary necessarily have to be distributed
only under terms of the more restrictive APLv2 license?

Finally, do you think we need a more convenient name than
panAxiom+Aldor for this combination?

Regards,
Bill Page.