Use Emacs as the IDE for Wolfram Mathematica.

[Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com>]

> Sent: Monday, May 24, 2021 at 9:10 PM
> From: "Jean Louis" <bugs@gnu.support>
> To: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>
> Cc: moasenwood@zoho.eu, help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Use Emacs as the IDE for Wolfram Mathematica.
>
> * Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> [2021-05-24 11:28]:
> > > > When any Emacs package is made, then the package has to be
> > > > with GPL3+ compatible software license because it requires
> > > > Emacs which is GPL3+ licensed.
> > 
> > That is a frequent misconception, if some code requires emacs, it
> > does not mean that the license has to be GPL3+ compatible.  The
> > license could be proprietary, open source, etc.
> 
> (✿╹◡╹) Maybe misconception is on my side or your side, I believe it is
> in your side.

Read more ;)
 
> Emacs package is not quite same as proprietary Lisp code that could
> run under free software programming language.
> 
> gcc is free compiler, and people could make proprietary software with
> it. But such proprietary software does not change the gcc and not
> necessarily depend on gcc to get run, but as soon as it depend on some
> GPL component, then it cannot be made proprietary.

The license only limits you on what you can distribute, nothing else.
 
> Now CLISP, Guile, and other programming languages may be GNU GPL
> software. When you make a program to be run by Guile, CLISP, those
> programs could be proprietary software as they do not change nor
> modify the Guile, nor CLISP. They are just executed by free
> software. But the overall result depends of components used in the
> program, you cannot just include GPL components as you wish and want
> in your proprietary program.
> 
> Would the Emacs Lisp program be exclusively run from command line as
> run by Emacs as programming language then such program could be
> licensed as proprietary software. But that also would depend if your
> program is using the GPL components or not, which most probably would
> use.
> 
> (⌐■_■) So the question is answered here:
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL
> 
> If you just interpret the Emacs Lisp, it is fine, but question is, do
> you bind to GPL components? Most probably you do.
> 
> Would you make an Emacs Lisp program that does not bind to any of the
> GPL components then such program could be proprietary. But if you do
> bind to any components, it cannot be proprietary.

> For example, if you do something like:
> 
> (require 'seq)

You can certainly do that as long as you do not distribute seq with it in
a proprietary blob.  What you cannot do is limit what people can do with
seq.
 
> That would make it no go, as your program clearly binds to GPL-ed
> sequence manipulation library of Nicolas Petton. You cannot legally
> make proprietary software by binding to GPL libraries.
> 
> As long as Emacs program has to be run within Emacs editor, it is
> changing the editor, thus it is modification and program is not
> considered stand-alone any more, it is combined program in copyright
> terms, and cannot be proprietary.
> 
> > The problem is not about the support of a programming language.
> > When emacs supports a language such as C, it would also support
> > proprietary implementations of the language.  I see no problem with
> > that.  But currently, there is no free software alternative to
> > Wolfram Mathematica that benefits users.
> 
> I would say there is no alternative to free software, so I will not
> use Wolfram Mathematica, I will not even look what it does, but when
> somebody comes up and tells what features are needed we can maybe
> find.

Looking at what it does for the purpose of reverse engineering does not bother me.
You can learn from anything and anybody.
 
> - SageMath is free software
> - GNU Octave is free software
> - R Programming Language is free software
> - Jupyter is free software
> - Maxima is free software
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jean
> 
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