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From the FAQ: >The main reason 8th is not GPL licensed is that I (Ron) have strong philosophical objections to being forced to give away my intellectual proper

From the FAQ: >The main reason 8th is not GPL licensed is that I (Ron) have strong philosophical objections to being forced to give away my intellectual property. I disagree with the very tenet that "code should be free" in the GPL sense. Instead, I am of the opinion that you are free to have access to the 8th source code if you are willing to pay for that privilege. If not, not. >A secondary reason we do not follow the "open source" idea is that, frankly, over the many years we have used open-source projects, we have been struck by the simple fact that a great many of those projects are maintained only to the extent the author decides to do so. Thus for example, the venerable "gcc" compiler has severe bugs which were reported many years ago, but which will probably never be fixed. This, despite the fact that the code for it is available and anyone could fix it at will. Nobody has, probably nobody will -- because the gcc code is extraordinarily difficult to grok. So the "many eyes" argument for open-source and GPL is not overly convincing to me.

bch 9y ago
> Thus for example, the venerable "gcc" compiler has severe bugs which were reported many years ago, but which will probably never be fixed. This, despite the fact that the code for it is available and anyone could fix it at will. Nobody has, probably nobody will -- because the gcc code is extraordinarily difficult to grok. So the "many eyes" argument for open-source and GPL is not overly convincing to me. It looks like this really just identifies that "hard problems are hard", ignores any actual benefits, and incorrectly projects that onto a "license problem". Anyone is free to license how they like, but this isn't a strong argument for that.
zem 9y ago
on one hand, yes, I support their right to do whatever they want with their product. on the other hand, as a user I am not willing to invest any time or attention in a closed source language. also, having seen that philosophy essentially kill qi/shen, I am sceptical of it as a general approach. might work for some niches like game dev.
- RandomBK 9y ago
  Indeed. Programming languages are a buyer's market. Sure, you can feel free to do whatever you want with your own language - just don't expect people to take it seriously.
- TurboHaskal 9y ago
  What killed Qi/Shen? Didn't M. Tarver end up open sourcing it with a BSD like license to end up with nobody actually giving a f?
  - zem 9y ago
    yes, but there seems to be a certain window of opportunity for new language where they have enough mindshare for lots of early adopters to check them out, and if there are any barriers to adoption at that point the crowd tends to move on to the next new thing. sadly, fixing things later doesn't seem to work, though I wish it would. I can immediately think of shen, rebol and D as languages that have not done nearly as well as one might expect based purely on what they offered to PL enthusiasts, and I am sure there are lots more.
    - mncharity 9y ago
      > lots more Poplog - a hydra of Common Lisp, Standard ML, Prolog, and POP-11. Late 1980's, early 1990's, it seemed like it could change the world. With dreams of riches, it was kept closed source and commercial. It made a few million... and is dead and forgotten. Gotta wonder what the world might be like now, if they'd chosen glory over riches.
nathan_long 9y ago
Every programming language I've ever used has been open source. I have fixed small issues myself, and I know that I or someone else could fork them if the current maintainers quit. Whether developers have the right to the source is debatable. But personally, I wouldn't stake the life of my projects on a language (or database) whose life depends on one entity and their business model. And it seems to me that others feel the same way, and that the trends are toward OSS - .NET went open source, Oracle is giving way to PostgreSQL, Azure now supports Linux, etc.
parenthephobia 9y ago
> strong philosophical objections to being forced to give away my intellectual property Non-sequitar. If you used the GPL, you'd be doing so voluntarily, so you wouldn't be being "forced" to do anything. > a great many of those projects are maintained only to the extent the author decides to do so An issue that is even more pronounced with closed source software, where _all_ such projects are maintained only to the extent the author decides to do so.
microcolonel 9y ago
It seems like all of the problems the author claims with open source are simultaneously worse and more opaque with closed source.
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
> A secondary reason we do not follow the "open source" idea is that, frankly, over the many years we have used open-source projects, we have been struck by the simple fact that a great many of those projects are maintained only to the extent the author decides to do so I'm sure this company will be maintained only to the extent the company can stay alive.
DonaldFisk 9y ago
I have a different objection to Open Source, that companies can profit from its use without paying its developers a penny, and usually do. My preferred licence is Shared Source: you get the source, and it's free (as in beer) for non-commercial use, and can be bought for commercial use.

bch 9y ago

> Thus for example, the venerable "gcc" compiler has severe bugs which were reported many years ago, but which will probably never be fixed. This, despite the fact that the code for it is available and anyone could fix it at will. Nobody has, probably nobody will -- because the gcc code is extraordinarily difficult to grok. So the "many eyes" argument for open-source and GPL is not overly convincing to me. It looks like this really just identifies that "hard problems are hard", ignores any actual benefits, and incorrectly projects that onto a "license problem". Anyone is free to license how they like, but this isn't a strong argument for that.

zem 9y ago

on one hand, yes, I support their right to do whatever they want with their product. on the other hand, as a user I am not willing to invest any time or attention in a closed source language. also, having seen that philosophy essentially kill qi/shen, I am sceptical of it as a general approach. might work for some niches like game dev.

RandomBK 9y ago
Indeed. Programming languages are a buyer's market. Sure, you can feel free to do whatever you want with your own language - just don't expect people to take it seriously.
TurboHaskal 9y ago
What killed Qi/Shen? Didn't M. Tarver end up open sourcing it with a BSD like license to end up with nobody actually giving a f?
- zem 9y ago
  yes, but there seems to be a certain window of opportunity for new language where they have enough mindshare for lots of early adopters to check them out, and if there are any barriers to adoption at that point the crowd tends to move on to the next new thing. sadly, fixing things later doesn't seem to work, though I wish it would. I can immediately think of shen, rebol and D as languages that have not done nearly as well as one might expect based purely on what they offered to PL enthusiasts, and I am sure there are lots more.
  - mncharity 9y ago
    > lots more Poplog - a hydra of Common Lisp, Standard ML, Prolog, and POP-11. Late 1980's, early 1990's, it seemed like it could change the world. With dreams of riches, it was kept closed source and commercial. It made a few million... and is dead and forgotten. Gotta wonder what the world might be like now, if they'd chosen glory over riches.

nathan_long 9y ago

Every programming language I've ever used has been open source. I have fixed small issues myself, and I know that I or someone else could fork them if the current maintainers quit. Whether developers have the right to the source is debatable. But personally, I wouldn't stake the life of my projects on a language (or database) whose life depends on one entity and their business model. And it seems to me that others feel the same way, and that the trends are toward OSS - .NET went open source, Oracle is giving way to PostgreSQL, Azure now supports Linux, etc.

parenthephobia 9y ago

> strong philosophical objections to being forced to give away my intellectual property Non-sequitar. If you used the GPL, you'd be doing so voluntarily, so you wouldn't be being "forced" to do anything. > a great many of those projects are maintained only to the extent the author decides to do so An issue that is even more pronounced with closed source software, where _all_ such projects are maintained only to the extent the author decides to do so.

microcolonel 9y ago

It seems like all of the problems the author claims with open source are simultaneously worse and more opaque with closed source.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago

> A secondary reason we do not follow the "open source" idea is that, frankly, over the many years we have used open-source projects, we have been struck by the simple fact that a great many of those projects are maintained only to the extent the author decides to do so I'm sure this company will be maintained only to the extent the company can stay alive.

DonaldFisk 9y ago

I have a different objection to Open Source, that companies can profit from its use without paying its developers a penny, and usually do. My preferred licence is Shared Source: you get the source, and it's free (as in beer) for non-commercial use, and can be bought for commercial use.