> It’s not open source. WL is essentially just a bunch of useful functions collected into a common platform, and I think we already have the open source equiva

> It’s not open source. WL is essentially just a bunch of useful functions collected into a common platform, and I think we already have the open source equivalent of that - it's called npm, and it's great, but it is very different, and it has some pretty big downsides which are the direct result of it being an open source project rather than a commercial product. I don't know if WL is as elegant or high-quality or deeply functional as Wolfram claims, but if it is, isn't that likely a result of it being built the way it's built? It might be that there's a middle option - a way to open some core part of the language, while still keeping enough closed to make up a service layer that they can charge for, as you described - but today's announcement is pretty strong evidence that they considered that and rejected it. It seems pretty presumptuous to assume they got it wrong.