Help needed: APL reference documentation in ELPA

Help needed: APL reference documentation in ELPA

[Elias Mårtenson]

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Once my employer has signed the copyright papers my intention is to submit
the Emacs mode for GNU APL to ELPA.

I have one concern, and that is the fact that it currently includes
reference documentation that was taken from the IBM APL2 documentation. I
have a license to use this from IBM, but the license is only for this
specific project, which obviously is incompatible with the Emacs license.

Therefore, I wonder if there is any free documentation that I can include
instead, or if no such documentation exists, if someone is perhaps willing
to write it? The work needed is to write a short summary on all the APL
symbols. My own APL skills are not strong enough to do this, and I'm also
not a particularly good documentation writer.

To see the format of the text, here is the file containing the APL2
snippets:

https://github.com/lokedhs/gnu-apl-mode/blob/master/gnu-apl-refdocs-apl2.el

And here is the start of the non-IBM-licensed documentation:

https://github.com/lokedhs/gnu-apl-mode/blob/master/gnu-apl-refdocs-bsd-license.el

The latter is based on Wikipedia and is woefully incomplete (and sometimes
wrong, I'd like to see all of it replaced).

Thanks and regards,
Elias

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Re: Help needed: APL reference documentation in ELPA

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

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() Elias Mårtenson <lokedhs@gmail.com>
() Sun, 25 May 2014 20:07:11 +0800

   I wonder if there is any free documentation that I can include
   instead, or if no such documentation exists, if someone is perhaps
   willing to write it? The work needed is to write a short summary on
   all the APL symbols.

If your employer is open to a short contract to do this job, please mail
me privately.  Even though i don't have any particular references to
provide, and most likely know even less APL than you, i tend to take
documentation (and related disciplines) quite seriously and am happy to
learn as i go.  E.g., i have written most of the documentation for the
packages at:

 http://www.gnuvola.org/software/

as well as some chunks for Emacs, itself (like many other righteous
Emacs lovers, of course -- i am not special in this regard :-D).

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen
   GPG key: 4C807502
   (if you're human and you know it)
      read my lisp: (responsep (questions 'technical)
                               (not (via 'mailing-list)))
                     => nil

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Re: Help needed: APL reference documentation in ELPA

[Elias Mårtenson]

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Unfortunately, my employer is not involved in this project. What I'm
waiting for is the usual contract that has to be signed by the employer of
any Emacs contributor.

Regards,
Elias


On 25 May 2014 21:28, Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@gnu.org> wrote:

> () Elias Mårtenson <lokedhs@gmail.com>
> () Sun, 25 May 2014 20:07:11 +0800
>
>    I wonder if there is any free documentation that I can include
>    instead, or if no such documentation exists, if someone is perhaps
>    willing to write it? The work needed is to write a short summary on
>    all the APL symbols.
>
> If your employer is open to a short contract to do this job, please mail
> me privately.  Even though i don't have any particular references to
> provide, and most likely know even less APL than you, i tend to take
> documentation (and related disciplines) quite seriously and am happy to
> learn as i go.  E.g., i have written most of the documentation for the
> packages at:
>
>  http://www.gnuvola.org/software/
>
> as well as some chunks for Emacs, itself (like many other righteous
> Emacs lovers, of course -- i am not special in this regard :-D).
>
> --
> Thien-Thi Nguyen
>    GPG key: 4C807502
>    (if you're human and you know it)
>       read my lisp: (responsep (questions 'technical)
>                                (not (via 'mailing-list)))
>                      => nil
>

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Re: Help needed: APL reference documentation in ELPA

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

    I have one concern, and that is the fact that it currently includes
    reference documentation that was taken from the IBM APL2 documentation. I
    have a license to use this from IBM, but the license is only for this
    specific project, which obviously is incompatible with the Emacs license.

Are you planning to include a manual for APL in GNU Emacs?
I don't think that makes sense.  We don't include a C manual in Emacs.

I think it is better to distribute APL documentation separately.

_How_ does IBM permit you to use that material?  Are you distributing
it under a free license?  What license does IBM say you can or must use?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.

Re: Help needed: APL reference documentation in ELPA

[Elias Mårtenson]

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(In this mail, "gnu-apl-mode" refers to the Emacs mode that I have built,
which "GNU APL" refers to the GNU product of the same name).

The Emacs mode has support for searching and automatically displaying
documentation (it also integrates with Eldoc). There is code in there to
detect whether the function is used in a monadic or dyadic context and
instructs Eldoc to pop up the correct documentation.

I fully agree with you that the documentation really doesn't belong in the
gnu-apl-mode itself. It really belongs in GNU APL. That said, no matter
where the documentation can be found, it needs to be in some
machine-readable form so that gnu-apl-mode is able to access it.

As for IBM's documentation, I approached them and asked if they were
willing to license the reference documentation in a form appropriate for
this project. They did give me a license to use it, but that license is
tied to gnu-apl-mode. This is the reason I would like to replace it with
something that is GPL compatible.

Since I had the license to use it, I did put it in there, but as soon as
this thing goes into ELPA, it will have to be removed. Since I'm now close
to actually doing this, I felt it was time to try once again to get help
with the documentation.

Finally, I have worked very closely with Jürgen who is the maintainer of
GNU APL. I don't think he's opposed to including documentation in the GNU
APL package (as opposed to gnu-apl-mode) but including the IBM
documentation is obviously out of the question.

In summary: Yes, the documentation belongs in GNU APL proper. And if free
documentation can be produced, it will most likely be included in GNU APL
itself, with gnu-apl-mode simply accessing it.

Regards,
Elias


On 26 May 2014 00:03, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>     I have one concern, and that is the fact that it currently includes
>     reference documentation that was taken from the IBM APL2
> documentation. I
>     have a license to use this from IBM, but the license is only for this
>     specific project, which obviously is incompatible with the Emacs
> license.
>
> Are you planning to include a manual for APL in GNU Emacs?
> I don't think that makes sense.  We don't include a C manual in Emacs.
>
> I think it is better to distribute APL documentation separately.
>
> _How_ does IBM permit you to use that material?  Are you distributing
> it under a free license?  What license does IBM say you can or must use?
>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation
> 51 Franklin St
> Boston MA 02110
> USA
> www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
> Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
>   Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.
>
>

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