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[REBOL] Re: Opening a new blog about Rebol?

From: petr:krenzelok:seznam:cz at: 18-Nov-2007 22:55

Alessandro Manotti napsal(a):
> Hello Petr, > first of all: thank you for your exhaustive answer. Just a question (since > I'm not involved in R3 testing or development, and I cannot follow AltMe > discussions, so...) are you a developer, or a Rebol Technologies > responsible? I ask this because it seems you talk like a Rebol Tech company > member (this is not an abuse, but just an information that I wished to get). >
Well, from som pov I may be regarded as an REBOL representative :-) But - the truth is I have nothing in common with RT. It is just I am here from the very beginning - as an Amigan, writing main columns for Amiga Review for something like 4 years, I started to notice Carl during his Viscorp times. Carl then left Viscorp and announced his REBOL project. Since that time I am here :-) So, basically I know history of REBOL from many angles, being it RT (public image), community, etc. It also seems to me, that if REBOL user group takes off, I might become community representative. I am known being rather vocal, sometimes probably controversial, but even during more difficult times of REBOL's history, many ppl did agree with my opinions. But once again - no relation to RT on my side ...
> But - some ppl preach to open-source as a holy grail. I have one friend, > >> who uses REBOL but constantly blames it for not being open sourced. He >> uses also Python. So I asked him, if he EVER even looked into Python >> sources. The answer was what I expected - even if some problem would >> arise, he would NOT be able to fix it himself, having sources or not. >> That is some false feeling of "security". >> >> > > This is a common "mistake" that several people do. I fully agree with you. > In fact, even if I made my first application when I was 12, and now I'm 37, > and I know more than 15 programming languages, I never imagine to use open > source apps to modify their source code (I haven't enough free time nor > enough resources... aka people involved). But when I decide to use an open > source app, I know that, probably, a big community will grow around that > piece of software, and even if a company would terminate its development, or > some people go in the "wrong way" (from my point of view) I know that I will > not remain completely tied! >
That is interesting. There is REBOL/Core clone called Orca, yet noone develops it further. The problem of REBOL's success is several folds and is more deep. We IMO missed so called "momentum", an oportunity window. Now it will be more difficult to make REBOL popular. In fact I think that open-sourcing REBOL nowadays would have nearly zero meaning. We can't easily create many wrappers to external systems available for languages like php, python, ruby, perl. Not with so small commnuity. I think that we should take two aproaches: 1) let's make sure REBOL is extensible and has flexible architecture - I think that R3 fullfills this part easily. DevBase is up and running and it even contains first C level code. The only closed part of R3 is going to be rebol.dll, which is platform independent, so in theory RT can port it to new platforms in few days imo 2) I think that we should concentrate upon what we are good at. Small, lightweight, distributed application. I hope we will provide even R3 browser plug-in version. I think that REBOL could be third to the game - Flash/Flex, Silverlight, REBOL. REBOL IOS is still unmatched by many other technologies.
> I think Rebol company sometimes forgets that, even if they created a great > product, thay have to "fight" in the market, against Java, python, perl, > ruby, php, etc... Some of them are free, other ones are even open source. >
I think RT is aware of that fact, and if you read carefully between the lines of various blog posts, you might notice RT is not depreciating website and overal marketing strategy ....
> Rebol could be a killer application if new VID (in R3) will be really > powerful. >
It will be powerfull. Declarative UI is the way to follow. I am fed-up with all that crappy object oriented environments, done just for programmers, with no real advantage. Now even Java got JavaFX. VID3 will be hopefully good enough for general application UIs.
> Java on server-side is great (my opinion), even to create BIG applications. > Instead Java and JavaFx have serious problems in client-side (due to the big > size of the runtime, the big amount of memory used, the big delay during > startup, etc...). > > On the contrary of other clients (flash, java on the web, etc...) rebol can > directly access to local resources (very important if I use it in my company > to realize internal company applications, for all the europe). > > Furthermore, for the people like me that follow rebol, there is lack of > information about R3 development (I stopped to develop Laccio because I > don't know anything about new R3, I don't continue to make tutorials on VID > R2 because I don't know anything about R3 VID, etc....). I think other > people are in the same situation. >
Yes, temporarily, till R3 release. I know that feeling when you stop your development, because you feel the new thingy hits the market next day. Release of DevBase and current enhancements to DevBase are preparation for more wide public release. Dunno how long will it take. I will just put MY OWN estimate here - alpha release might be out befor the end of the year, and I think beta could be out in 2Q/2008. Hopefully sooner, it depends upon more factors ...
> More: since Rebol is not a free product, some people could think: why I need > to spend time to create apps and resources for free if rebol self is not > free? Why should I have to help Rebol? Just to let them gain more money?! > Believe me, some people think that. >
REBOL is free, it is not open sourced. That ppl need to check their sanity then. Are Flash IDE tools free? Is Flash open-sourced? Is .NET open sourced? Product popularity is not equal to its open source nature. We should name problems with the right names. I think the problem is - ppl don't feel safe about REBOL. One of main problems I attribute to RT's public "communication" skills. We have to find the way of how to improve it. Carl knows there is some space for improvement.
> I think Rebol must be closed in order to avoid forks, but you need to find a > good license to involve the people to try and use it. (example: free for > non-commercial use, like many other products do!). >
License - we will see - many things will be free, SDK might be paid. Many things will be even open-sourced. Completly different model from R2 ....
> Alessandro - just sit, blog, and watch the show :-) > > I watching the show.... but I still see a lot of fog! And I cannot see > clearly a lot of things! So, please, try to help me (and other people like > me) to eliminate the fog and better see the show!!! :-) :-) :-) >
When sun rises, fog clears out :-) Cheers, -pekr-