[REBOL] Re: Rebol SDK vs Command
From: edoconnor:g:mail at: 18-Sep-2007 13:57
Hi Petr--
Good to see you active in Rebol again. I knew you couldn't stay away :^)
I think we're mostly in agreement here. I do not believe that opening
the source today would make much difference. Perhaps it might have in
1998 when Rebol was new, but as Gabriele says, the past is past.
>> But this one, I am not sure is accurate :-) Why would RT not use e.g. MS
Developer Studio to code REBOL?
My analogy was about RT being willing to write REBOL in a proprietary
language, not about their willingness to use a proprietary IDE or
compiler. Developers are often willing to pay money for tools,
extensions, add-ons and solutions (such as a RAD IDE, component, or a
DBMS). It's the language that most people expect to be free, just like
I don't pay anything to read/write/think/create in English, but I pay
for tools such as pens, paper, phones and computers to store, compose
or transport my words.
>> Do you want to know opinion of most CIO's on open-source here? They
really don't care! That one is for Carl Read too - CIOs DON'T care. They
are not stupid.
In my experience, CIO's tend to be anti-open source. They are business
managers whose job is to contain IT costs while supporting key
business functions with minimal risk. But open-source or not, any
company large enough to have a CIO will endorse only standard
software/platforms/methodologies backed by the corp. giants(i.e.,
someone they can sue if something goes wrong) and offshore vendor
teams.
If RT wants to sell R3 in a B2B model, the dll should remain closed,
and R3 should retain its commercial, proprietary branding. In this
model, R3 should demonstrate clear, quantifiable advantages (either
generally or in a specific, marketable domain), and it should come
with a justifiably expensive price tag (price is associated with
value). Looking back at the past decade of RT and the unique nature of
REBOL, I imagine this approach presented some tough challenges.
If RT wishes to sell R3 in more of a B2C model (i.e., don't sell the
language, focus on selling add-ons, SDKs, Apache mod's, etc.), then
opening the language fully might remove an important barrier to
grass-roots adoption. I'm sure open-source comes with a set of
headaches, but like it or not, conventional perception is that
open-source offers a critical advantage for a language, and
closed-source for an upstart language is a deal-breaker.
I can see a lot of words have been written on this topic, and I think
I've finally said all I can say about it. Personally I'm not
disappointed that the R3 .dll will not be open-source-- that isn't
important to me-- I use Rebol for personal, end-user programming.
Arguing against or in favor of open-source requires an understanding
of RT's business model, which I'm not privy to. Whatever the case, I,
like all of us, hope R3 is a giant success and the start of a great
rebolly future.
Cheers,
Ed
