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Andrey G. Grozin wrote: |
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> Hello *, |
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> |
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> I've just committed aldor-1.1.0 to the science overlay. This is the |
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> first open-source release (free for non-commercial use). Previous |
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> releases were binary-only (free of charge for non-commercial use, x86 |
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> only). Now aldor and its libraries are compiled from sources in this |
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> ebuild, and can (probably) be compiled for any arch. |
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> |
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> Aldor is a language developed for many years at IBM, then NAG, and now |
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> aldor.org. It was designed as a replacement of the Axiom library |
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> compiler. It is an excellent library for implementing computer algebra, |
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> and it has a rather comprehensive foundation library (libalgebra) with |
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> many algebraic domains (it is not as comprehensive as the library of |
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> Axiom, written in the old language). Aldor can be used both separately |
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> and from Axiom. I am sure that the next axiom ebuild must have the local |
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> USE flag "aldor" which would allow using aldor from axiom (and will |
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> depend on the aldor ebuild I've committed now). What I am not sure is |
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> which axiom to package, there are now 3 of them :-( |
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> |
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> I know that the current ebuild is far from ideal. It ignores the user's |
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> CFLAGS and uses the ones supplied by the aldor folk. The build system is |
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> rather non-standard, and fixing this will require patching a number of |
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> makefiles. But in any case, it is better than the previous |
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> free-of-charge binaries - they were compiled with the same CFLAGS chosen |
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> by aldor developers, and on x86 only. So, please, try aldor-1.1.0 and |
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> report yoor experiences. This is a very well designed language for doing |
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> mathematics. |
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> |
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> Andrey |
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|
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I think I've mentioned on this list before that |
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|
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a. The forking of Axiom three ways was (and still is) a contentious |
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ego-ridden mess, and |
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|
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b. While the Axiom project folks begged NAG to "free Aldor", the best |
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they could get was a "free for non-commercial use" license, which makes |
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it incompatible with most "free as in freedom" licenses. |
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|
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So ... while Aldor does indeed appear to be a product of high quality, |
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you do have to be careful and choose wisely how you spend your time with |
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Aldor, Axiom, OpenAxiom and FriCAS. For now, I am sticking with the main |
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branch of Axiom and not touching Aldor until "things settle down a |
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little bit." |
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|
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I'm hoping that the disputes causing the forks will get resolved and |
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there will only be one Axiom. And I'm hoping NAG can be persuaded to |
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eliminate the non-commercial clause from the Aldor license. |
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|
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IIRC I posted a bug in Bugzilla to get Axiom up to date long before the |
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forks. I'm personally running the main line Axiom on both AMD64 and x86 |
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with only one issue -- the "gcl" it carries only works in older versions |
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on AMD64. If you follow the Lisp mailing list, "gcl" is close to getting |
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kicked out of Portage because there are better Common Lisps available. |
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But these are issues that I think can easily be fixed upstream without a |
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fork. :) |
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|
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I have tested the forks ... they don't currently offer me anything the |
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main line Axiom has. It looks like the *math* is getting maintained in |
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the main line and the FriCAS and OpenAxiom forks are more about build |
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improvements. Build improvements are sorely needed, but the *reason* for |
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having Axiom is to do math, not to rebuild Axiom faster. :) |
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-- |
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