OpenEuphoria

Re: GPL

• Posted by Steve Mosher <farq at KILN.ISN.NET> Feb 25, 2000
• 413 views

On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, Everett Williams wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Feb 2000 12:52:55 -0800, Cuny, David at DSS <David.Cuny at
> DSS.CA.GOV>
> wrote:
>
> >Steve Mosher wrote:
> >
> >> There was an 'LGPL' developed for libs.
> >
> >Thanks; I'll look for it.
> >
> >-- David Cuny
>
> I strongly agree that LGPL or some of it's close kin would serve you
> and the Euphoria community well. That, however, triggers a problem that
> takes the real power out of the type of openness that I find in this
> group. The base that you build on is absolutely closed, cuts across
> the GPL and brings into question the validity of the use of the LGPL.
> After you have had a chance to read it, you will see what I mean. It is
> my personal opinion that RDS is smothering their own creation by the
> amount of secrecy built up around Euphoria's base code. Bread upon the
> waters...and all that. Not only would the language grow at a much greater
> rate, but the integrity and continuity fostered by the Open Source
> mode of doing business would bring more users, more confidence, and
> more plain old dollars to the Euphoria fold. I'd a lot rather advertise
> myself as a premiere practitioner of a widely available secure code
> engine than as a dabbler with a code engine that is at the total mercy
> of one or two people. Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc. for all their myriad
> failings have these things to point to and huge, fanatically devoted
> groups of users along with strong commercial use. Linux is not Linus
> Torvalds, though his renown is justly deserved. Linux is the combined
> effort of literally thousands of developers. Had he fanatically
> defended his "genius" work and kept total control of all aspects, how
> many of us would know who he is today?

        I'll get one tiny criticism out of the way first. I can't speak
for Python or Tcl/Tk (since I don't use them), but Perl has failings? I
disagree. Perl does exactly what it was intended to do... whether it does
what you intend it to do or not is your own success or failure (granted
that failure could be in language choice). I'm saying this because Larry
Wall is just so crazy (read any perl documentation) I have great
admiration for him.

        Anyhow, that's entirely beside the point. It could be that RDS
doesn't believe that great opensource software can really make more money
than closed source can. Whatever, they have their reasons. I think use
would spread if RDS were to stick a GPL on there and there would be more
people paying for CDs with a free copy of Euphoria on it, than there
would be people paying for a commercial version of Euphoria right now.
Imagine having an archive of all the contributed stuff. Imagine the
vastness of all that stuff if Euphoria became a popular language for DOS,
Windows, and every relevant flavour of Unix. Actually, that thought alone
would cause me to do it. I'd love to say, 'I wrote a language that has
permeated the software development world, on all major platforms', and
mean it.
        But RDS has reasons, and I can live with it.