[Axiom-developer] Re: SPAD and Aldor again

[Gernot Hueber]

Hi, 

Andrey G. Grozin writes: 

> On Mon, 20 Nov 2006, Gernot Hueber wrote:
> > With great help from Gregory, I have started to implement a wrapper library to
> > access GSL (GNU scientific library) functions from Aldor/Axiom. I use the Lisp
> > approach with dynamic loading of a shared library.
> > Yet some of the functions work fine - but there are far to many of them to
> > cover them all for the moment. Furthermore, there are some unresolved problems
> > (e.g. calling a Axiom/Aldor function from the library code). 
> Excellent news! Many thanks. We really need something to "replace" the NAG 
> library in the free Axiom.
This was my intention. I missed some of the functions ... 


> Just one important moment. GSL is GPL-licensed. So, Axiom wich can be 
> linked with GSL (even dynamically) can only be distributed under GPL.
Good point. The only necessary modification of Axiom is to use a 
dlopen/dlsym enhanced underlying gcl. I consider the remaining part of the 
wrapper (Lisp and Aldor code) as loadable plugin to Axiom. It is external 
and can be distributed separately. Sufficient? 

Furthermore, IMHO the key point is not the existing code (there is not much 
of it existing yet), but a strategy of how to integrate and call shared 
library C functions from Aldor/Axiom - for sure not a circumvent solution 
for any external library written in any language, but at least for some 
cases it works. 

Gernot 

> Andrey