Greetings, and thanks for your work on Debian! I understand the desire for an interim solution to get something in before freeze. But please drop this package and just copy the 5.35 source in the sage tree and build it there however you like. This is the only logical place really as sage (under this optional interface) has co-opted the maxima project and turned it into a private library, an API into which is most definitely not supplied by maxima upstream. Maxima is a program, not a library, and the only consistent interprocess communication in such a circumstance is via pipes and read/write. texmacs is a successful example.
It is a pity that as sage offers a viable alternative, it has nevertheless been passed over. I hear concerns about human resources, but then when I offer to help make it work and request a status report all I get is predetermined conclusions to not make it work. If we really are concerned about human resources, it seems odd that we would hitch our wagon to some upstream process which apparently is several releases behind maxima upstream. This is all too familiar. I assure you that maxima's printed output has not changed over the course of these releases. But relying on internal structure which the developers do not commit to maintain as a stable api is just asking for this duplication of effort and *waste* of human resources. I know this from experience -- I once tried to use libbfd internals in gcl under similar circumstances. gcl had to be rebuilt with every minor bfd release! I ignored their clear decision not to provide a .so linkable library and wasted countless hours chasing their changes and trying to make it work. I assure you that I can get the print interface to work. In fact I will pledge to be solely responsible for ensuring that tests of this interface pass at the standard designed upstream should we agree to go this way. It would make sense in such a case for me to join your group and co-maintain sage with you. Debian is a complex project, and its pieces need to fit together like leggos or bricks with clear boundaries. Hence duplication of source is generally taboo. What would it be like if I released a 'sage-that-really-works-with-maxima' package? Nevertheless if you can build 5.35 internally and we pledge to work this out after release, I'm OK with that. Take care, Tobias Hansen <than...@debian.org> writes: > Hi Camm, > > with all the issues that prevent us from using the maxima package for > SageMath (version mismatch, ecl vs. gcl, missing fasl file, missing > patches) an the freeze for stretch getting closer, we needed a solution. > So I created a separate maxima package to be used by SageMath. > > It is called maxima-sage and contains maxima 5.35.1 using ecl. It is > fully coinstallable with your maxima packages and contains this text in > the package description of each binary package: > > The maxima-sage packages are meant to be used together with SageMath. > They contain the version of Maxima that works together with the > SageMath version in Debian and use ECL instead of GCL as Lisp compiler. > To use Maxima by itself, the more complete and up-to-date maxima > package is recommended. > > I hope you can live with this solution. For the next Debian release we > have another chance to try and use your maxima packages for SageMath. > > You can close this bug now if you want. > > Best, > Tobias > > > > -- Camm Maguire c...@maguirefamily.org ========================================================================== "The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." -- Baha'u'llah
