World: r3wp

Graham - exactly - I think that we have many things to do - port 
R3 to many platforms, create browser plugin, etc.  There is where 
our energy should be put. R3 is free. How more cheap you want it 
to have?

Of course we can't prevent ppl from anything. Boron might be good 
test-base for the interpreter itself ...

is the license GPL? In that case that would explain some things.

The thing is, the mafia and other internet criminals are dictating 
how we use our PCs.

Viruses, malware, phishing etc are all forcing us to a self healing 
OS like Chrome where everything lives on the cloud.

I can see this as being very attractive to users tired of being threatened 
by every piece of malware out there.

So, how is rebol going to fit in this?

If the OS is going to handle the security side .. does this mean 
that the browser plugin can afford to worry less about security ??

Wasn't that the issue with the firefox plugin .. that the security 
model was never completed ...

Graham - Google & co are teh mafia :-) There is no cloud, and there 
is no Chromium OS - they are just fooling us with marketing ;-) The 
cloud is - internet, and storing my data not on my device. Once there 
will be a time, when whole that cloud crap collapses, and you will 
want your local storage once again :-) And Chromium OS? What is that? 
Linux and Chrome browser on top of that ...

In regards to what I said - is there really a difference to security 
model? Because cloud just means - my hardisk is not in my machine, 
but somewhere else. But still there is an OS, apps, and still there 
is a user trying to click on everything you put in front of his eyes 
:-)

Every application will be sandboxed.

if the filing system is encrypted .. do you have to encrypt your 
files again?

I have a Dell ntb with Bitlocker capable chip - so I run encrypted 
storage on my Vista for 2.5 years already ... nothing new here ...

that wasn't the point .. it was an allegory

but  .. using your ntb, do you encrypt sensitive files again?

there is a difference pekr. in the cloud only one type of malware 
is nessesary to make a total collapse possible. ;-)

transfer responsibility  to a third party doesn't solve the problem. 

technological mono culture has the same advantages and disadventages 
like the biological one.

the dinosaurs flourished for hundreds of million of years .. that 
was a biological monoculture

your wheat also graham...

To answer your questions towards REBOL browser plugin:


- we don't know, if they will allow plugins, do we? But if they do, 
we can create one, why not?


- Josh disappeared long time ago, security doc he was supposed to 
work on, was never finished. But most probably non-ability to properly 
secure browser plugin was one of the reasons why R3 effort started 
...


- with browser plugin, you better don't allow call to local system, 
nor any call to system API. So the question is - what happens to 
'call and 'extensions? Even if you would display security requestor, 
it might be considered a threat, as users are kind of dumb, and many 
will click YES anyway. So the only chance probably will be to build 
special Hosts, including everything we need for a plugin


- there might be some special version of plugin, with signing and 
certificates, so e.g. RT would inspect the extension, and claim it 
being secure. But I still don't know, if it is going to be enough 
...

A lot of my stuff I use lives in the cloud now ... Evernote ( just 
recently installed ), Dropbox, Googledocs, Googlewave, my own EMR 
app ...

Anyway, this is a threat to the traditional desktop .. I thought 
we should just do a threat assessment :)

Wouldn't want R3 to be irrelevant before it was even finished.

ChromiumOS comes at the end of 2010, not for your general HW, but 
only from some HW partners. Anything can happen till then. Other 
than that - why it should be a threat? We can make plugin, and live 
in their space. If it allows only webapps, not linux native ones, 
plugged into Chrome "desktop" via some API, then it is total crap 
...

They are really not any special, they are just google. Look at Moblin 
(Intel sponsored effort), it uses similar paradigm of simplified 
desktop. Those systems are good for some TVs, set-top-boxes, etc.

I expect that they will add support for http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/

If VID3 is so cool as it looks so far, and makes building apps rather 
easy (instead of tonnes of html and JS), we might as well use them 
to our advantage, via plugin ....

I already proposed to Carl, to release also browser plugin code, 
apart from Host code. I think that R3 plugin might be here in few 
months, if someone picks-up development. Wrapper to NS API will just 
be the same.

hmm, tech news group .... we are OT here :-)

Hardly any chat here anyway these days ...

This is nice summary from Thom Holwerda - http://www.osnews.com/story/22505/Google_Unveils_Chrome_OS

http://lifehacker.com/5408932/chrome-os-virtual-machine-build-ready-for-your-testing?skyline=true&s=x

ChromeOS as a VMware image

I think the development of Boron is a bit of a shame. The effort 
should be directed towards R3 instead.


Isn't diversity a good thing in many cases? There isn't really any 
other REBOL-like, modern, internet-ready language out there used 
at large. (I also think about the "despair and anger" about programming 
languages, that was linked in the "Chat (not web public)" group.) 
I think, competition might actually be a good thing in this situation.


I was looking for, what project "Wildman" really is/was, and I found 
this page:
http://www.rebol.com/priorities.html

That's written 5-January-2007. I think, language competition is needed.

I think, language competition is needed.


I completely disagree. It sounds to me like you're not in touch with 
what R3 is about, which I don't understand since you have such a 
great insight to REBOL programming:


- You know that our resources are scarce. There are very few REBOL 
experts and they are all working.

- You know that R3's source model will deliver the much needed flexibility 
in extensions, hosts and open source code.

- You know that R3 development is moving forward at a steady pace.

- You know there is a clause to put R3 in other people's hands, if 
RT bows under.

- You know that the R3 design proces relies heavily on one single 
reference.

- You know that RT can't work any one bit faster if a different developer 
with similar goals comes in to compete.

- You know that dividing REBOL in separate implementations will kill 
one of its main advantages

What can competition possibly give us?

Diversity is what brought Linux into the sad state it's in today.

Hm, I didn't know, I knew so much. ;-)

Should I reply or not? I'm not really in a mood for a deep debate. 
I'll comment each in short, and that's it.

Ah, Kumite :-)

1. "You know that our resources are scarce. There are very few REBOL 
experts and they are all working."


If an expert can't help by delivering C code, which is needed, I 
guess, then it's better, if that expert use his code elsewhere. (See 
e.g. Gabriele's last post in "!REBOL3".)


2. "You know that R3's source model will deliver the much needed 
flexibility in extensions, hosts and open source code."


We still wait to see these things. Do you expect people to wait forever? 
I can understand, many use their REBOL knowledge and try to create 
something similar themselves, because they're tired of waiting. If 
there were alternatives, people didn't have to wait, but could move 
back and forth between languages. That's happening with many other 
languages.


3. "You know that R3 development is moving forward at a steady pace."


And it can continue to do that, even if there were competition. Actually 
competition might speed some things up.


4. "You know there is a clause to put R3 in other people's hands, 
if RT bows under."

No, I didn't know that.


5. "You know that the R3 design proces relies heavily on one single 
reference."


Yes, and that put REBOL developers in what situation? With alternatives 
and competition, how would the situation look? I don't think, it 
needs to be a worse situation than the present one with alternatives.


6. "You know that RT can't work any one bit faster if a different 
developer with similar goals comes in to compete."

No, I didn't know that. Also if the alternative were open source?


7. "You know that dividing REBOL in separate implementations will 
kill one of its main advantages"


So there can be only one? We have R1, R2 and possible R3 in the future. 
R3 seems to be not very backward compatible, when it comes out. What 
if there came an alternative, that was more compatible with R2, than 
what R3 will be? That can't be bad for all our present code written 
in R2.


I'm sorry, if I offended you, I didn't mean to. I like change. And 
I like good design.

Geomol - sometimes I wonder about your ignorance(?), sorry. You are 
very clever guy, so I really wonder, what is the reason to hear argument 
like in point 2) Henrik is right - who is more informed than the 
community members? I remember the time when Carl invited me to R3 
GUI world. You all gurus were there, yet he had to invite person 
like me (causing a noise many times), because of lack of input. So 
what are we complaining to? Replies to blogs are similar matter. 
Just don't tell me, you are not informed.


Te link to beta project plan - http://rebol.com/r3/docs/project.html
was posted here, was posted in November status update IIRC. Twitter 
message says, Carl is working on Host code NOW. Yesterday we posted, 
that Carl reported on R3 chat succesfull separation of Host vs kernel 
and that he is working on MinGw support. The host code is being worked 
on NOW.


So how can you post argument like you posted in point 2)? Isn't it 
a bit ignorant and disrespectfull to those who care to work on R3? 
How much support do you expect? I do care to remind Carl to update 
blogs, we do care to spread info even here, yet you claim "do you 
expect ppl to wait forever?". 


And even more so - do YOU expect anyone to wait for mysterious ORCA 
like project to be closer than R3 is? ORCA actually IS open sourced, 
for many years. How is that it did not bring competing environment 
to R2 at least to date? (not to mention its architecture is arcane 
compared to what R3 provides us?)


We are really small community. Everyone of us, can weight his own 
free time. So now decide for yourself, where do you put your free 
time REBOL wise. Boron, or R3? As for me, the answer is clear - my 
energy goes to project, which currently has chance to be completed 
in close future. Splitting our efforts at this stage can't bring 
anything usefull imo ...

I don' t see anyone splitting their effort between R3 and Boron. 
Carl is working on R3, and Karl is working on Boron. Nobody else 
is doing much of anything. Carl would never work on Boron and Karl 
could never work on R3, so nothing is lost

Splitting efforts is all hypothetical, as everyone else seems to 
direct their full effort at just talking

I'll have to put in an exception for Brian here :-)

And I for Henrik. He has alos contributed heavily to R3 mainly, but 
not exclusively, to the GUI so his contribution is not so visible 
at the moment.

Geomol, I'm not offended. I'm only wondering about the seeming lack 
of awareness on the amount of energy that Carl has been putting into 
R3 over the past 3 years and being commnunity members, we should 
all know, right?

I don' t want to repeat this discussion, but Carl' s effort is not 
the point. It' s being three years late compared to the promised 
date

If R3 had showed up as promised, I would never have had to bother 
with ORCA and Boron

Promised or predicted?

Promised; review that link Geomol posted above

There was a promised date? When?

I said I don' t want to repeat this discussion...

The thing I find so strange is that people are so unaware of the 
development pace of R3 which is why it makes so little sense to work 
on competing projects.