Ari Johnson <ari_j@hotmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Edi Weitz wrote:
| > Where does CLISP claim that? It calls itself "GNU CLISP," not "GNU
| > Common Lisp."
| 
| Ah, there ya go.  Is CLISP a GNU project, then, or are they just riding 
| the GNU bandwagon by using 'GNU' to prefix every bit of GPL-covered 
| software out there?
+---------------

Neither, actually. The way I heard it[1], they added the "GNU" when they
decided to bundle GNU "readline" into the package, and were unable to
get Richard Stallman to change the copyright on "readline" from the GPL
to the LGPL. As a result, CLISP as a whole is now GPL'd (whereas before
it was closer to a BSD license). In recognition of this status, its name
is now prefixed with "GNU". However, as of CLISP 2.30, the "NEWS" file says:

    * CLISP does not come with GNU gettext anymore. This is a separate
      package and should be installed separately, if you wish to use i18n.

    * CLISP does not come with GNU readline anymore, because, starting with
      version 4.3, readline supports multibyte characters out of the box.

So I don't know if this will result in any change of the "GNU" status
of CLISP or not, since once something's ever been GPL'd...


-Rob

[1] Based on the vigorous "discussions" that come up here and
    elsewhere from time to time. Please feel free to correct me
    if I have made any serious mistakes in this short summary.
    Or Google for "CLISP readline GPL LGPL Stallman" for some
    other views.

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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