Re: A Portable API for Euphoria
> - who is going to do it? Me? Junko? Someone I authorize?
> Should I just release the core source to the world (minus
> the DOS/Windows-specific code)?
I don't think you should "public" release the code (I'll continue the
issue later).
> - will it be totally free, or will there be a registered version?
Use the same principle you've succesfully used until now. A "lite"
version is freely available, and royalty-free, an enhanced version must be
registered. This way you get both: expansion (users) of the language and
money from who really needs Euphoria.
> - who controls the evolution of the language? Will there be
> 17 different flavors of Euphoria floating around?
RDS should control the evolution of the language, based on users request
off course. Euphoria is an RDS propietary language, I don't expect an
ANSI/ISO group defining it. The language definition should be just one for
all platforms, and only have "widgets" specific. I don't see any
inconcistensy. The first approach wouldn't include any special I/O such as
graphics, just STDIN, STDOUT and file access.
>If someone other than myself does a port, I'm sure
>they will need a lot of my help to get started. The code was designed
>more for speed than for portability. It uses some WATCOM-specific
>routines and features, although when I first ported from Atari to PC
>I got it compiled and running using GNU C, before switching to
>WATCOM.
During the last 2 years, RDS has won many inconditional users/contributors,
why not depend on this (some very skilfull) people for the subject?
I'm sure the whole thing can be broked on small tasks. The intelectual
property could be somewhat safe by letting each person access only some part
of the project. I personally won't feel offended if strategical code isn't
revealed to me... we would do this to improve Euphoria, and to be able to
use it on other platforms.
While a group of users is "portabilisizing" the 90% of the code, you can
have to time to port the classified 10%.
Even more, if you want to reward this people you can pay (in any mechanism
you choose, maybe as the actual "happy users" scheme) them with a
distribution of the first incomes from the ported program. RDS hasn't to
stay with 2 "employees" (you and Junko) you can "hire" others. People that
helps you are the ones who belive on Euphoria's future.
During this process, a byte-compiler ( EuJava ;) ) can be achieved... not a
bad idea huh!
>Compared to DOS+Windows, Linux and Mac are both small
>markets. I suspect that most
>Linux people expect to get their programming languages,
>and everything else, completely free including
>full source code (Perl, Python, GNU, etc.).
I'm sure developers will be quite intereset on a language that provides 40
to 60 times faster responce than Pearl or Python, 10 to 20 times faster
development time than C/C++, and 1/2 to 1/5, or less, cost than other
"professional" development tools. (even if WATCOM's optimization is lost,
Euphoria will certainly beat Pearl and Python).
>I'll be thinking about these strategic issues
>over the next few weeks. If anyone has any ideas,
>let me know.
Just remember that the future (present?) is the net. Euphoria running on a
networking OS will open a bigger market than what you think, dont fall on
Bill's short minded thoughts "640K ought to be enought...".
(or something like that).
Regards,
Daniel Berstein.
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