[REBOL] Re: Rebol SDK vs Command
From: carl:cybercraft at: 17-Sep-2007 21:54
On Sunday, 16-September-2007 at 17:57:45 Henrik Mikael Kristensen wrote,
>On 16/09/2007, at 1.58, Carl Read wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sunday, 16-September-2007 at 0:46:19 Gabriele Santilli wrote,
>>
>>> Carl Read:
>>>
>>>> From RT's POV, staying proprietary might look the easiest way to
>>>> make money
>>>> from REBOL,
>>>
>>> That's not the reason why R3's core is not open source.
>>
>> And the reason is? I can think of others, such as it containing
>> licensed code from sources other than RT, or that RT has made
>> promises to customers that they wouldn't open-source it. Or that
>> they're just stubborn on this point. But you didn't say why, so I
>> guess you're not allowed to. Thus we waste time guessing...
>
>To keep others from meddling with the language. It's that simple. And
>yes, if it were opened, people WILL meddle with it in directions that
>could quickly move it into a corner, feature wise, so you can't do
>this or that with it. You can't avoid forking or design by committee
>as seen in so many open source programming languages. To be frank,
>how many coders out there can outsmart Carl Sassenrath and code a
>better REBOL 3?
Assuming there's not many, why is he worried?
So REBOL might fork, but how will that stop RT taking REBOL in the direction they want
it to go? And if RT's version is better, won't it be the version that attracts the most
users?
And it's already forked - R2/R3...
>I'm betting personally that with around 50 people, we can support and
>maintain the 40 advertised platforms by the end of 2008, plus have
>better integration into each system, and all of them will have proper
>documentation.
But there's the problem. You're wanting the open-source ethos to support and maintain
what's at core a closed-source product.
-- Carl Read.
