Common Lisp Reference Manual

[Guy.Steele@CMU-CS-A]

The publisher of the Common Lisp Reference Manual is Digital Press.  I
understand that they may be negotiating with manufacturers to allow
them to reprint the manual in various ways as part of their product
documentation.  I am leaving the business and legal aspects of this up
to Digital Press, and referring all corporate inquiries to them.  My
goal is primarily to ensure that (a) no one publishes a manual that
claims to be about Common Lisp when it doesn't satisfy the Common Lisp
specifications, and (b) to make sure that everyone involved in the
Common Lisp effort is properly credited.  I certainly do not want to
block anyone from implementing or using Common Lisp, or even a subset,
superset, or side-set of Common Lisp, as long as any differences are
clearly and correctly stated in the relevant documentation, and as long
as the Common Lisp Reference Manual is recognized and credited as the
definitive document on Common Lisp.  This requires a certain balance
between free permission and tight control.  This is why I am letting
the publisher handle it; they almost certainly have more experience
with such things than I do.

I have asked the editor at Digital Press to arrange for complimentary
copies to be sent to everyone who has contributed substantially to the
Common Lisp effort.  This will include most of the people on this
mailing list, I imagine.  The set of people I have in mind is listed in
the acknowledgements of the book--seventy or eighty persons
altogether--so if you see a copy of the book and find your name in that
list, you might want to wait a bit for your complimentary copy to show
up before buying one.  (Because of the large number of copies involved,
they aren't really complimentary, which is to say the publisher isn't
footing the cost:  the cost of them will be paid out of the royalties.
I estimate that the royalties from the entire first print run will just
about cover these free copies.  It seems only fair to me that everyone
who contributed to the language design should get a copy of the final
version!)

The nominal schedule calls for the typesetter to take about five weeks
to produce camera-ready copy from the files I sent to them on magnetic
tape.  The process of printing, binding, and distribution will then take
another four to five weeks.  So at this point we're talking availability
at about the end of May.  This is a tight and optimistic schedule; don't
blame Digital Press if it slides.  (I'm certainly not about to cast any
stones!)  Unless you're an implementor wanting to order a thousand
copies to distribute with your system, please don't bother the folks at
Digital Press until then; they've got enough problems.  I'll send more
information to this mailing list as the date approaches.

One last note.  The book is about 400 pages of 8.5" by 11" Dover output.
Apparently the publisher and typesetter decided that this made the lines
too wide for easy reading, so they will use a 6" by 9" format.  This
will make the shape of the book approximately cubical.  Now, there are
26 chapters counting the index, and a Rubik's cube has 26 exterior cubies.
I'll let you individually extrapolate and fantasize from there.
--Guy