From: Henna
Subject: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <0G4OU7M838033.7443981481@Gilgamesh-Frog.org>
Which free common lisp is most widely used?
Which has most user support?
Which has less headaches? and the distribution comes with most tools so I
do not have to 
 gather them from places.
Which is most versatile and allow exploration of most concepts?
Which is easy to install? on redhat linux? 

I am only using redhat linux.

These questions were not answered at a useful site
   http://www.cliki.net/Common%20Lisp%20implementation
and so I ask you.

Installing common lisp would be a major headache for a person of my
capability,
so I request help for my benefit, not as a forum for rivalries. This means
that if you
have a counter idea, please post it and in some detail so that I can make
comparison.
My immediate goal is to get plisp running and if this can be done
immediately with
minimal effort then I would defer a full commonlisp with CLOS to a later
time.

Henna

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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More about the subject will be available http://frogadmin.yi.org/HOS/

From: Kaz Kylheku
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <cf333042.0402161627.1f9b3bfb@posting.google.com>
··················@See.Comment.Header (Henna) wrote in message news:<························@Gilgamesh-Frog.org>...
> Installing common lisp would be a major headache for a person of my
> capability,

Aha, a loud and clear spoiler asserting

     ``I am a troll, not a computer programmer''.
From: Pascal Costanza
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <c0qu1u$pk6$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>
Henna wrote:

> Which free common lisp is most widely used?
> Which has most user support?
> Which has less headaches? and the distribution comes with most tools so I
> do not have to 
>  gather them from places.
> Which is most versatile and allow exploration of most concepts?
> Which is easy to install? on redhat linux? 
> 
> I am only using redhat linux.
> 
> These questions were not answered at a useful site
>    http://www.cliki.net/Common%20Lisp%20implementation
> and so I ask you.

This goes only to comp.lang.lisp.

Crossposting to comp.lang.scheme and gnu.emacs.help is not nice. The 
right newsgroup for questions related to Common Lisp is comp.lang.lisp.

Your questions are not easy to answer. A current list of Common Lisp 
implementations can be found at http://alu.cliki.net/Implementation . If 
you need more help, you need to be more specific wrt your requirements.

A quick glance at plisp shows that this is a package from 1987. Since 
the official ANSI Common Lisp was released in 1995, you have to expect 
some incompatibilities and some amount of work to get around them.

Maybe GCL would be a good choice. It is usually criticized for not being 
standard compliant enough, but in this case this might help you. 
However, this is pure guesswork on my side. I don't know the details of 
plisp at all.

If you really depend on this but don't have the necessary skills to make 
this work on your own, consider paying someone. Some people who earn a 
living from hacking Lisp can be found here or elsewhere.


Pascal

-- 
Pascal Costanza               University of Bonn
···············@web.de        Institute of Computer Science III
http://www.pascalcostanza.de  R�merstr. 164, D-53117 Bonn (Germany)
From: Henrik Motakef
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <86ad3irkhj.fsf@pokey.internal.henrik-motakef.de>
··················@See.Comment.Header (Henna) writes:

> Which free common lisp is most widely used?
> Which has most user support?
> Which has less headaches? and the distribution comes with most tools so I
> do not have to 
>  gather them from places.
> Which is most versatile and allow exploration of most concepts?
> Which is easy to install? on redhat linux? 
>
> I am only using redhat linux.
>
> These questions were not answered at a useful site
>    http://www.cliki.net/Common%20Lisp%20implementation
> and so I ask you.

There was a thread comparing free lisps for Unix about a week ago. See
<http://groups.google.com/groups?as_ugroup=comp.lang.lisp&as_usubject=CLISP%20vs.%20CMUCL%20vs.%20SBCL>

> Installing common lisp would be a major headache for a person of my
> capability,

> My immediate goal is to get plisp running and if this can be done
> immediately with minimal effort then I would defer a full commonlisp
> with CLOS to a later time.

Both CMUCL and SBCL seem to load build.lisp and compile.lisp OK on the
first sight (although I didn't bother figuring out how to actually use
them :-). Both are also "full Common Lisps with CLOS" and all kinds of
other stuff, and pretty easy to install: just download a tarball and
extract it in the appropriate place. There are also RPMs for CMUCL at
<http://www.caddr.com/lisp/>.
From: Pascal Bourguignon
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <87vfm6kiqm.fsf@thalassa.informatimago.com>
All  is relative.  We  could answer:  not  enough data!  to all  these
questions, but I'll give my opinion.

··················@See.Comment.Header (Henna) writes:
> Which free common lisp is most widely used?

No idea. It sounds like cmucl is, but I knew clisp much before cmucl...

> Which has most user support?

cmucl, sbcl and clisp seem to have about the same support in this newsgroup.


> Which has less headaches? and the distribution comes with most tools so I
> do not have to gather them from places.

Depends on what you want to do.   I'd say clisp, for what I do most of
the time.


> Which is most versatile and allow exploration of most concepts?

They're all Common-Lisp! 


> Which is easy to install? on redhat linux? 

Depends if you want to install  it compiling from source, or if you're
happy with  a binary installation. From  the source, I  think clisp is
easiest.  From binary, it does not make any difference.


Other free implementations to consider: emacs-cl, gcl, ecl, armedbear,
etc, depending on what you want to do, where and why.

-- 
__Pascal_Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he doesn't
want merely because you think it would be good for him.--Robert Heinlein
http://www.theadvocates.org/
From: Ari Johnson
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <yI8Yb.73742$fD.58514@fed1read02>
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Other free implementations to consider: emacs-cl, gcl, ecl, armedbear,
> etc, depending on what you want to do, where and why.

What's the difference between CLISP and GCL?  Both claim to be GNU 
Common Lisp, from what I'm seeing.  This bothers me.
From: Edi Weitz
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <m3ptcest0g.fsf@bird.agharta.de>
On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 12:18:48 -0700, Ari Johnson <·····@hotmail.com> wrote:

> What's the difference between CLISP and GCL?

They're completely different implementations of Common Lisp. One
important difference is that GCL uses gcc to create native machine
code from C source files while CLISP compiles to its own kind of
bytecode. CLISP currently seems to be more ANSI-compliant but this may
change.

> Both claim to be GNU Common Lisp, from what I'm seeing.  This
> bothers me.

Where does CLISP claim that? It calls itself "GNU CLISP," not "GNU
Common Lisp."

Edi.
From: Ari Johnson
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <yV9Yb.67$o52.17@fed1read02>
Edi Weitz wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 12:18:48 -0700, Ari Johnson <·····@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>What's the difference between CLISP and GCL?
> 
> 
> They're completely different implementations of Common Lisp. One
> important difference is that GCL uses gcc to create native machine
> code from C source files while CLISP compiles to its own kind of
> bytecode. CLISP currently seems to be more ANSI-compliant but this may
> change.
> 
> 
>>Both claim to be GNU Common Lisp, from what I'm seeing.  This
>>bothers me.
> 
> 
> Where does CLISP claim that? It calls itself "GNU CLISP," not "GNU
> Common Lisp."
> 
> Edi.

Ah, there ya go.  Is CLISP a GNU project, then, or are they just riding 
the GNU bandwagon by using 'GNU' to prefix every bit of GPL-covered 
software out there?
From: Henrik Motakef
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <86u11qpwsc.fsf@pokey.internal.henrik-motakef.de>
Ari Johnson <·····@hotmail.com> writes:

> Ah, there ya go.  Is CLISP a GNU project, then, or are they just
> riding the GNU bandwagon by using 'GNU' to prefix every bit of
> GPL-covered software out there?

It is a GNU project. And they certainly don't "ride the bandwagon",
CLISP did only become GPLed in the first place because of a direct
intervention of Richard Stallman. A pretty ugly story, Google will
certainly find some references.
From: Tayssir John Gabbour
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <866764be.0402162024.66ac93f4@posting.google.com>
Henrik Motakef <············@henrik-motakef.de> wrote in message news:<··············@pokey.internal.henrik-motakef.de>...
> Ari Johnson <·····@hotmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Ah, there ya go.  Is CLISP a GNU project, then, or are they just
> > riding the GNU bandwagon by using 'GNU' to prefix every bit of
> > GPL-covered software out there?
> 
> It is a GNU project. And they certainly don't "ride the bandwagon",
> CLISP did only become GPLed in the first place because of a direct
> intervention of Richard Stallman. A pretty ugly story, Google will
> certainly find some references.

Damn, this probably took 5 minutes to find.  Not easy.
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL?rev=HEAD

I don't think this is an ugly story at all; seems perfectly
interesting.  I once read some OSF lawyer arguing in a pretty .pdf
file that linking with a GPLed dynamic library should promote some
immunity from being a derived work.  However, this would create a
gaping hole in the GPL because then it would be trivial to avoid the
GPL's requirements.

Incidentally, you can make analogies between Gnu's contradictory
approach (use the machinery of copyright to undermine copyright) and
Malcolm X's approach (one must be ready to wage war in order to gain
peace):
http://www.brothermalcolm.net/2003/mx_oxford/
http://www.brothermalcolm.net/mxwords/whathesaid17.html

Martin Luther King mentioned:
"You know, right before he was killed he came down to Selma and said
some pretty passionate things against me, and that surprised me
because after all it was my territory there. But afterwards he took my
wife aside, and said he thought he could help me more by attacking me
than praising me. He thought it would make it easier for me in the
long run."

So one must incidentally wonder if we're being gamed by Gnu and the
more "business friendly" Opensource Foundation.  There are certain
strategies common to various revolutions; to some extent these are
likely intentional.
From: javuchi
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <m2lln2e248.fsf@servidor.kalandra>
···········@yahoo.com (Tayssir John Gabbour) writes:

> So one must incidentally wonder if we're being gamed by Gnu and the
> more "business friendly" Opensource Foundation.  There are certain
> strategies common to various revolutions; to some extent these are
> likely intentional.

Please, can you tell what do you think those strategies are?

-- 
�� javuchi ��
From: Tayssir John Gabbour
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <866764be.0402171010.35ca362d@posting.google.com>
javuchi <······@nospam.com> wrote in message news:<··············@servidor.kalandra>...
> ···········@yahoo.com (Tayssir John Gabbour) writes:
> > So one must incidentally wonder if we're being gamed by Gnu and the
> > more "business friendly" Opensource Foundation.  There are certain
> > strategies common to various revolutions; to some extent these are
> > likely intentional.
> 
> Please, can you tell what do you think those strategies are?

I already mentioned the good cop/bad cop one where by a fairly extreme
side looks moderate by the introduction of a more extreme one. 
Malcolm X was aware of this as he verbally attacked Martin Luther
King, calling him wishy-washy and compromising.  People realized that
"the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and MLK's message became more
palatable than before.

In the same way, Stallman uncompromisingly claims Opensource is a
sell-out, an organization not committed to users' freedom but instead
about getting crumbs from business.  Many people publicly wish
Stallman would soften his stance in favor of unity with the Opensource
community, but couldn't that be a mistake?  When Microsoft went on the
warpath against Opensource licenses, calling them Communist, public
pressure forced them to modify their stance to only include the GPL. 
Which legitimized the other Opensource licenses overall.

Incidentally, the labels thrown around by Microsoft are another
example of a strategy you'll find during revolutions.  Malcolm X, a
very articulate and rational person, explained that an old trick is to
put a label on someone that makes him appear wild and incapable of
reason.  When Microsoft called the GPL "communist," it made people
seem anticapitalist and unpatriotic when they tried introducing Free
Software to their companies.  Businesspeople don't want to hear about
anything anticapitalist.  So they're scared off from possibly acting
in their own best interests.

"Viral" is another buzzword used against Gnu.  It sounds really funny
to us, but most people fear spyware and viruses, which are NO DOUBT
made by renegade geniuses.  And it's perfectly conceivable that the
software on the harddrive might mix and infect each others'
licenses...  People do believe this!  Businesspeople are already
afraid of IT, which takes control of their organizations away from
them because they depend on it but don't understand it.  Except for
Apple, computer companies have struggled to find a bland, respectable
face that didn't scare business owners.  So these linguistic attacks
hit Gnu hard.

I'm not saying that the computer world's little revolutions are as
important as civil rights struggles, and I certainly am not offering
an opinion on what I truly think is "right."  I just want to point out
there are patterns that occur in many situations, and people who
devote their lives to something, like Stallman and Raymond, will know
about them at least intuitively, if they're at all competent.

And plus it all looks like those fake wrestlers on TV.  Moneymaniac
Gates vs. the tagteam upstarts Crazy Raymond and Genius-Grant
Stallman.

Zillions of people have written books on the manufacture of public
consent, or read Roman political histories.  You could probably throw
a rock and hit someone who knows more about this than I do.
From: javuchi
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <m2znbhum58.fsf@servidor.kalandra>
···········@yahoo.com (Tayssir John Gabbour) writes:

> I already mentioned the good cop/bad cop one where by a fairly
> extreme side looks moderate by the introduction of a more extreme
> one.  Malcolm X was aware of this as he verbally attacked Martin
> [....]

All of this is the same of always. I'm agree with your point of view.
We are surrounded by radicalist people. But there is no solutions,
really, except perhaps believing in our own interests and try to do
the best for yourself, helping others in the way if you can.

One can trust in Gates. Another one in Stallman. But at the end it is
always the same history. The god one against the bad one, and millions
of people following one or another, like stupid lemmings... (in the
politic way, I mean)

Intelligent people just do things and not involve into politics.
Anything of this has any sense.

-- 
�� javuchi ��
From: Nicolas Neuss
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <87ptce59wq.fsf@ortler.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>
···········@yahoo.com (Tayssir John Gabbour) writes:

> Damn, this probably took 5 minutes to find.  Not easy.
> http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL?rev=HEAD
> 
> I don't think this is an ugly story at all; seems perfectly
> interesting.

I think it is a ugly story.  I think readline is usually inessential to a
CL implementation, at least when using Emacs is possible.  And providing a
user choice of linking to it should not be violating the GPL.  IANAL, but I
do not think that a court would see that differently.  Note also that up to
now Stallman did not clarify the GPL in this respect, probably because it
would show a rather ugly face then.

And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.

Nicolas.
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <YKtYb.38$IJ5.7968@typhoon.nyu.edu>
Nicolas Neuss wrote:

> ···········@yahoo.com (Tayssir John Gabbour) writes:
> 
> 
>>Damn, this probably took 5 minutes to find.  Not easy.
>>http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL?rev=HEAD
>>
>>I don't think this is an ugly story at all; seems perfectly
>>interesting.
> 
> 
> I think it is a ugly story.  I think readline is usually inessential to a
> CL implementation, at least when using Emacs is possible.  And providing a
> user choice of linking to it should not be violating the GPL.  IANAL, but I
> do not think that a court would see that differently.  Note also that up to
> now Stallman did not clarify the GPL in this respect, probably because it
> would show a rather ugly face then.

You may disagree, but that is their decision.  That is why the LGPL 
exists.  If you want the GPL Trojan Horse effect to take effect you will 
use the GPL for a library.  That is what `readline' is all about.  Not 
that this is an endorsement or a condamnation on my part.  It is just 
the way things are.


> And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
> multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.

I do not understand this last statement.  Every decent CL I know has 
multiple precision build in.  At least in the sense mandated by the CLHS.

Cheers
--
Marco
From: Nicolas Neuss
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <871xotgmy9.fsf@ortler.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:

> > And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
> > multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.
> 
> I do not understand this last statement.  Every decent CL I know has
> multiple precision build in.  At least in the sense mandated by the CLHS.

I meant floating point multiprecision where CLISP appears to be unique (at
least among free lisps).

Nicolas.
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <oKMYb.40$IJ5.9068@typhoon.nyu.edu>
Nicolas Neuss wrote:

> Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> 
> 
>>>And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
>>>multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.
>>
>>I do not understand this last statement.  Every decent CL I know has
>>multiple precision build in.  At least in the sense mandated by the CLHS.
> 
> 
> I meant floating point multiprecision where CLISP appears to be unique (at
> least among free lisps).

Ok.  But how does that relate to the ANSI standard?

Cheers
--
Marco
From: Nicolas Neuss
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <87znbgco41.fsf@ortler.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:

> Nicolas Neuss wrote:
> 
> > Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> >
> >>>And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
> >>>multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.
> >>
> >>I do not understand this last statement.  Every decent CL I know has
> >>multiple precision build in.  At least in the sense mandated by the CLHS.
> > I meant floating point multiprecision where CLISP appears to be unique (at
> > least among free lisps).
> 
> Ok.  But how does that relate to the ANSI standard?

I did not refer to the ANSI standard (which requires a type long-float
-12.2-, but permits to implement it as double-float).  I simply would like
to have multiprecision floating point numbers for a certain application of
mine.

Nicolas.
From: Brian Downing
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <ejvYb.332265$I06.3439818@attbi_s01>
In article <··············@ortler.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>,
Nicolas Neuss  <·······@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote:
> And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
> multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.

libgmp is LGPL these days.  Specifically it is used in at least one big
non-free computer algebra package.

-bcd
-- 
*** Brian Downing <bdowning at lavos dot net> 
From: Hannah Schroeter
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <c0u06t$kqq$1@c3po.use.schlund.de>
Hello!

Brian Downing  <·············@lavos.net> wrote:
>In article <··············@ortler.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>,
>Nicolas Neuss  <·······@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote:
>> And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
>> multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.

>libgmp is LGPL these days.  Specifically it is used in at least one big
>non-free computer algebra package.

LGPL still sets un-nice rules on programs using LGPL code. Less
un-nice than GPL, but still. And... cmucl and sbcl *do* have bignums,
don't they? *g*

Kind regards,

Hannah.
From: Ray Dillinger
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <403508BD.F47C22FA@sonic.net>
Hannah Schroeter wrote:
> 
> LGPL still sets un-nice rules on programs using LGPL code. Less
> un-nice than GPL, but still. 

I'm wondering, what's un-nice about providing a linkable file so 
that someone can link to a different library if they want?  Does 
that present some kind of hardship or difficulty?

				Bear
From: Hannah Schroeter
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <c1df8g$ssq$1@c3po.use.schlund.de>
Hello!

Ray Dillinger  <····@sonic.net> wrote:
>Hannah Schroeter wrote:

>> LGPL still sets un-nice rules on programs using LGPL code. Less
>> un-nice than GPL, but still. 

>I'm wondering, what's un-nice about providing a linkable file so 
>that someone can link to a different library if they want?  Does 
>that present some kind of hardship or difficulty?

It's un-nice that s/o else wants to make rules about what I do
with *my* (part of the) work.

Kind regards,

Hannah.
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <at5%b.52$IJ5.16458@typhoon.nyu.edu>
Hannah Schroeter wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> Ray Dillinger  <····@sonic.net> wrote:
> 
>>Hannah Schroeter wrote:
> 
> 
>>>LGPL still sets un-nice rules on programs using LGPL code. Less
>>>un-nice than GPL, but still. 
> 
> 
>>I'm wondering, what's un-nice about providing a linkable file so 
>>that someone can link to a different library if they want?  Does 
>>that present some kind of hardship or difficulty?
> 
> 
> It's un-nice that s/o else wants to make rules about what I do
> with *my* (part of the) work.

Like... ahem, Novell or Sun or IBM or Franz or Xanalys do?

Cheers

Marco
From: Hannah Schroeter
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <c22n3v$2d9$1@c3po.use.schlund.de>
Hello!

Marco Antoniotti  <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:

>[...]

>> It's un-nice that s/o else wants to make rules about what I do
>> with *my* (part of the) work.

>Like... ahem, Novell or Sun or IBM or Franz or Xanalys do?

My comparision for so-called "free" software isn't commercial
software but free software. E.g. BSD/MIT style licenses.

Kind regards,

Hannah.
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <Ptb1c.72$IJ5.50839@typhoon.nyu.edu>
Hannah Schroeter wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> Marco Antoniotti  <·······@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
>>[...]
> 
> 
>>>It's un-nice that s/o else wants to make rules about what I do
>>>with *my* (part of the) work.
> 
> 
>>Like... ahem, Novell or Sun or IBM or Franz or Xanalys do?
> 
> 
> My comparision for so-called "free" software isn't commercial
> software but free software. E.g. BSD/MIT style licenses.

Fromn your comment, I understand that you take issue with the notion of 
"freedom" that comes with "free" software.  I can live with that, and I 
do neither want to discuss what has been discussed many many times 
already, nor I have a particular strong opinion about it.  But your 
comment seemed more general.  That is why I brought up the commercial 
enterprises.  After all they do make rules for you.

Cheers

--
Marco
From: Nicolas Neuss
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <87wu6lf7uw.fsf@ortler.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>
Brian Downing <·············@lavos.net> writes:

> In article <··············@ortler.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>,
> Nicolas Neuss  <·······@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote:
> > And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
> > multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.
> 
> libgmp is LGPL these days.  Specifically it is used in at least one big
> non-free computer algebra package.

Thanks for the info.  Then my argument is probably not correct and
multiprecision floating point is simply not important enough for other CLs.
Which non-free CAS do you refer to?

Nicolas.
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <uekstjclk.fsf@news.dtpq.com>
>>>>> On 18 Feb 2004 03:18:31 +0100, Nicolas Neuss ("Nicolas") writes:

 Nicolas> Brian Downing <·············@lavos.net> writes:
 >> In article <··············@ortler.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>,
 >> Nicolas Neuss  <·······@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote:
 >> > And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
 >> > multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.
 >> 
 >> libgmp is LGPL these days.  Specifically it is used in at least one big
 >> non-free computer algebra package.

 Nicolas> Thanks for the info.  Then my argument is probably not correct and
 Nicolas> multiprecision floating point is simply not important enough for other CLs.
 Nicolas> Which non-free CAS do you refer to?

You're looking for a CAS?  I recommend Macsyma, which is available
from Symbolics.  (See www.symbolics.com).  There's also a free version, 
called MAXIMA, which is very nice and is written in Lisp, but it's probably
ten or one hundred thousand man hours of development behind the commercial
version (which itself hasn't been worked on for a few years).
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <uad3hjchm.fsf@news.dtpq.com>
>>>>> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 03:22:31 GMT, Christopher C Stacy ("Christopher") writes:

>>>>> On 18 Feb 2004 03:18:31 +0100, Nicolas Neuss ("Nicolas") writes:
 Nicolas> Brian Downing <·············@lavos.net> writes:
 >>> In article <··············@ortler.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>,
 >>> Nicolas Neuss  <·······@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote:
 >>> > And Haible's argument concerning libgmp is the reason why we do not have
 >>> > multiprecision in other free lisp implementations as well.
 >>> 
 >>> libgmp is LGPL these days.  Specifically it is used in at least one big
 >>> non-free computer algebra package.

 Nicolas> Thanks for the info.  Then my argument is probably not correct and
 Nicolas> multiprecision floating point is simply not important enough for other CLs.
 Nicolas> Which non-free CAS do you refer to?

 Christopher> You're looking for a CAS?  I recommend Macsyma, which is available
 Christopher> from Symbolics.  (See www.symbolics.com).  There's also a free version, 
 Christopher> called MAXIMA, which is very nice and is written in Lisp, but it's probably
 Christopher> ten or one hundred thousand man hours of development behind the commercial
 Christopher> version (which itself hasn't been worked on for a few years).

Turns out, that web site is useless (which unfortunately speaks to 
the level of support you can expect on the product)... 
try contacting Symbolics directly at 703-455-0430.
From: Rob Warnock
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <Cr6dne5TMrZYYazdXTWc-g@speakeasy.net>
Ari Johnson <·····@hotmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Edi Weitz wrote:
| > Where does CLISP claim that? It calls itself "GNU CLISP," not "GNU
| > Common Lisp."
| 
| Ah, there ya go.  Is CLISP a GNU project, then, or are they just riding 
| the GNU bandwagon by using 'GNU' to prefix every bit of GPL-covered 
| software out there?
+---------------

Neither, actually. The way I heard it[1], they added the "GNU" when they
decided to bundle GNU "readline" into the package, and were unable to
get Richard Stallman to change the copyright on "readline" from the GPL
to the LGPL. As a result, CLISP as a whole is now GPL'd (whereas before
it was closer to a BSD license). In recognition of this status, its name
is now prefixed with "GNU". However, as of CLISP 2.30, the "NEWS" file says:

    * CLISP does not come with GNU gettext anymore. This is a separate
      package and should be installed separately, if you wish to use i18n.

    * CLISP does not come with GNU readline anymore, because, starting with
      version 4.3, readline supports multibyte characters out of the box.

So I don't know if this will result in any change of the "GNU" status
of CLISP or not, since once something's ever been GPL'd...


-Rob

[1] Based on the vigorous "discussions" that come up here and
    elsewhere from time to time. Please feel free to correct me
    if I have made any serious mistakes in this short summary.
    Or Google for "CLISP readline GPL LGPL Stallman" for some
    other views.

-----
Rob Warnock			<····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue			<URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403		(650)572-2607
From: Ray Dillinger
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <40326F33.F7CA99E9@sonic.net>
Rob Warnock wrote:
> 
> So I don't know if this will result in any change of the "GNU" status
> of CLISP or not, since once something's ever been GPL'd...
> 

It depends on the identity of the copyright owner.  The GPL proper, with 
ownership of the copyright assigned to the Free Software Foundation, 
creates a situation where you can't ever take that code out of GPL, you 
can't ever distribute changes and modifications of it again on other terms, 
etc, *UNLESS* the Free Software Foundation explicitly allows it. 

And the FSF, as a rule, won't.

However, if you use an "open" license of identical terms as the GPL, but 
you remain the copyright owner, then you can, at some future date, choose 
to distribute your code, with further improvements, on other terms - even 
commercial ones.  What you can't do is incorporate changes other people 
contributed under the "open" license into your closed product, or 
retroactively close the version you released under the open license.  
People can still tinker, get the source, distribute improvements, etc, 
without having anything to do with you as long as they aren't 
incorporating your code for any changes from your later closed versions.  
In effect, you could wind up competing against an opensource program 
derived from the earlier "open" version of your own product.  And if the 
"open" version develops faster and better than your "closed" version, it 
sucks to be you.

				Bear
From: Hartmann Schaffer
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <dOxYb.3493$Ps4.20893@newscontent-01.sprint.ca>
In article <······················@speakeasy.net>,
	····@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
> is now prefixed with "GNU". However, as of CLISP 2.30, the "NEWS" file says:
> 
>     * CLISP does not come with GNU gettext anymore. This is a separate
>       package and should be installed separately, if you wish to use i18n.
> 
>     * CLISP does not come with GNU readline anymore, because, starting with
>       version 4.3, readline supports multibyte characters out of the box.
> 
> So I don't know if this will result in any change of the "GNU" status
> of CLISP or not, since once something's ever been GPL'd...

afaik you can't change the license of code that has been released
already, but the copyright owner can put new releases under a new
license, though that would not effect the new releases of CLISP:  they
still link against GPLed libraries, they only don't include these
libraries in the release package

hs

-- 

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel
                                     Samuel Johnson

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all
others because you were born in it
                                     George Bernard Shaw
From: Paul F. Dietz
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <JOKdnRy735F_I6_dRVn-vg@dls.net>
Hartmann Schaffer wrote:

> afaik you can't change the license of code that has been released
> already, but the copyright owner can put new releases under a new
> license,

The copyright owner can release old releases under new licenses also.
He can even release the code under different licenses simultaneously.

	Paul
From: Hartmann Schaffer
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <bNSYb.3615$Ps4.21863@newscontent-01.sprint.ca>
In article <······················@dls.net>,
	"Paul F. Dietz" <·····@dls.net> writes:
> Hartmann Schaffer wrote:
> 
>> afaik you can't change the license of code that has been released
>> already, but the copyright owner can put new releases under a new
>> license,
> 
> The copyright owner can release old releases under new licenses also.

yes, but he can't change the license on already released code
retroactively

> He can even release the code under different licenses simultaneously.

but afaik he is not obliged to release new code under the same license
old versions have been released under

hs

-- 

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel
                                     Samuel Johnson

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all
others because you were born in it
                                     George Bernard Shaw
From: Paul Dietz
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <40324F26.EBE1E679@motorola.com>
Ari Johnson wrote:

> What's the difference between CLISP and GCL?  Both claim to be GNU
> Common Lisp, from what I'm seeing.  This bothers me.

I want to add that I haven't noticed any animosity between
the two development teams, and useful cross-fertilization
has been occuring, particularly in validation of the GCL
test suite, ANSI compliance, and testing of the CLISP
bytecode compiler.  BTW, CLISP's compiler is now surviving
the gcl random tester without failure(*), something no other
lisp can claim (AFAIK).

	Paul

(*) over a period of ~ 1 week on a reasonably fast PC,
  on forms of size up to 10,000.
From: Mario S. Mommer
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <fzznbgn468.fsf@germany.igpm.rwth-aachen.de>
Paul Dietz <············@motorola.com> writes:
>  BTW, CLISP's compiler is now surviving
> the gcl random tester without failure(*), something no other
> lisp can claim (AFAIK).
> 
> 	Paul
> 
> (*) over a period of ~ 1 week on a reasonably fast PC,
>   on forms of size up to 10,000.

That's really impressive.
From: Hans Oesterholt-Dijkema
Subject: Re: Which free common lisp do you recommend?
Date: 
Message-ID: <40349ed6$0$575$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>
I think redhat probably has an rpm with clisp that you can install.
I'd say this would be a resonable choice.

My question is, why have you posted this on the scheme group?

-- 
Best regards,

Hans Oesterholt-Dijkema