[REBOL] Re: Tuples - Was Pair! thread
From: rotenca:telvia:it at: 8-Feb-2002 23:12
Hi, Mark,
> What I mean by mainstream is that REBOL gains enough traction with users and
developers that the market for REBOL products, be this interpreters,
applications, books, tutorials, websites etc. becomes more active and self
enforcing.
Yes, I understand, and agree. But I'm not more sure that RT, in this exact
moment, is working to arrive to this goal with Rebol. In this moment, and for
now, i do not think that RT hope to gain "success" with Rebol. It was true
some months ago, but now i feel that IOS is their main product. And IOS is a
proprietary solution for small-middle-big companies who want to use the net
for inner/outer connectivity. Rebol is the internal powerful language of this
solution. It could be a necessary step, which permit at RT to find a solid
base to start new projects (or remember the old ones). The only new about
Rebol in these months is the Morpheus history (and Holger unofficial announce
on new effect pipeline in this mailing). No new doc, no new how-to, no
reference, no release date for new versions of Rebol, no visibility of future.
> Becoming multivendor and / or open source is the only way I can see REBOL
ever taking off as a technology unless RT Inc are bought out by one of the
industry giants who would then hopefully promote REBOL and give it a higher
level of visibility and commit greater resources to it. None of these
scenarios is by any means a certainty.
I think that RT hope to follow another strategy. From the faq of IOS:
Is IOS free or commercial?
IOS is an important part of our business strategy. We've given away more than
a million copies of REBOL software over the last four years, but IOS is our
commercial software.
How to say: IOS is the way we make money, our main project. RT is becoming a
service society, like IBM, hopefully like Sun. If Rebol could gain some
success
depends by the commercial success of IOS: more IOS systems, more
Rebol programmers, more Rebol docs, more Rebol tools, visibility and so on.
Today nobody (only Microsoft) can hope (without to dream) to break the market
with a proprietary scheme like the Rebol's one, not when alternativies are
free and not so bad, like Perl, Python, Ruby... But perhaps this can achieved
when the product is something like IOS. It is a hope, not more, at least for
me. I have already seen many excellent projects to go in the no man's land
these years, to believe that the market always rewards the best ones (or its
best idea is not mine).
> I hope for the best, and try to increase my understanding of the
multifaceted aspects of REBOL
> in the belief that someday I might in someway make a contribution to greater
choice & growth of REBOL as a technology.
Adopt now Rebol IOS and hope. Market rulez! :-)
---
Ciao
Romano
