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IBM should have taken an altruistic path on APL2. They have made tons of money with APL over the years. They should have released it as FOSS. As someone who

IBM should have taken an altruistic path on APL2. They have made tons of money with APL over the years. They should have released it as FOSS. As someone who started with APL in the early 80's, APL2 showed a lot of promise at the time. The APL ecosystem is dead enough that having a company like IBM go FOSS with the language could --not likely, but it could-- spike interest and perhaps lead to the development of "APL3" or whatever the next evolutionary step of the language might be named. From my perspective core APL is now a few decades behind the times. A non-trivial effort would be required to bring it into what it could become. And this could only be done through FOSS and people willing to invest time and smarts into driving this evolutionary step.

neilv 5y ago
A curious question (from a long-time open source contributor)... From the perspective of IBM's customers of APL2 (not from the perspective of some other group of humanity), would it best suit their interests to have APL2 spun off to a company, or for APL2 to be released as FOSS? I'm wondering whether, whatever the needs of those APL2 customers, perhaps the company would be more likely to satisfy those needs, compared to waiting for whatever emerges from FOSS? (Of course, with FOSS, multiple companies could emerge, and also be motivated to compete. But they'd be competing with each other, and with free FOSS undercutting them, for possibly a small pool of customers that might not grow much. And I don't know whether it'd be viable to invest in that slice of customers, or to even be in that business at all?)
- kevincox 5y ago
  FOSS is almost certainly better all else being equal. But what IBM's customers probably care far more about is the availability of support.
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  From my perspective as someone who's seen this happen before: "Released as FOSS" means "We have withdrawn life support and it will now die a slow lingering death. Have fun with that." Unless you can spare the resources to maintain it yourself, this marks the point when it's officially time to migrate away immediately. "Spun off to a small company" means "Someone has now been personally incentivized to take care of it." It's certainly not guaranteed to survive long-term, but it's at least been given a chance at revitalization. It's probably worth sticking around for a while to see what happens.
- geocar 5y ago
  Someone who wants APL2 but not to pay anyone for it uses GNU APL: they just aren’t that far away from each other. Maybe it’s worth closing the gap, but who pays for that? APL2 has already been paid for, so it’s hard for a company to pay for it again. On the other hand, they continue to pay for support, and if there were more APL2 users then that could surely save them money, and it seems plausible that a FOSS APL2 would make more APL2 users, but the existing APL2 users would suffer because they would be able to command less money for the support they already offer.
slver 5y ago
I know the cultural understanding among developers is that FOSS is "altruistic", but that's often wrong. It's all about incentives. If there's no incentive behind an OSS community working on this project, it'll just burn out a few naive souls, and kill off the project for the rest. Giving the project to a company which has commercial interest in maintaining it and supporting it through commercial licensing could mean a better future for APL2. This aftermath is very typical when a project is "interesting" from commercial perspective, but it's quite "boring" from technical/enthusiast perspective. I'm not saying it's ALWAYS one way or another. But it depends on the APL2 audience. We gotta start seeing FOSS as a tool, not as charity or as some sort of "giving to the world". We're engineers, or at least we should think as engineers. Engineers know no solution is just "best" at everything. Everything has pros and cons, and you need to consider things in context. That also applies to IP management with regards to what's best for a project's continued existence.

neilv 5y ago

A curious question (from a long-time open source contributor)... From the perspective of IBM's customers of APL2 (not from the perspective of some other group of humanity), would it best suit their interests to have APL2 spun off to a company, or for APL2 to be released as FOSS? I'm wondering whether, whatever the needs of those APL2 customers, perhaps the company would be more likely to satisfy those needs, compared to waiting for whatever emerges from FOSS? (Of course, with FOSS, multiple companies could emerge, and also be motivated to compete. But they'd be competing with each other, and with free FOSS undercutting them, for possibly a small pool of customers that might not grow much. And I don't know whether it'd be viable to invest in that slice of customers, or to even be in that business at all?)

kevincox 5y ago
FOSS is almost certainly better all else being equal. But what IBM's customers probably care far more about is the availability of support.
mumblemumble 5y ago
From my perspective as someone who's seen this happen before: "Released as FOSS" means "We have withdrawn life support and it will now die a slow lingering death. Have fun with that." Unless you can spare the resources to maintain it yourself, this marks the point when it's officially time to migrate away immediately. "Spun off to a small company" means "Someone has now been personally incentivized to take care of it." It's certainly not guaranteed to survive long-term, but it's at least been given a chance at revitalization. It's probably worth sticking around for a while to see what happens.
geocar 5y ago
Someone who wants APL2 but not to pay anyone for it uses GNU APL: they just aren’t that far away from each other. Maybe it’s worth closing the gap, but who pays for that? APL2 has already been paid for, so it’s hard for a company to pay for it again. On the other hand, they continue to pay for support, and if there were more APL2 users then that could surely save them money, and it seems plausible that a FOSS APL2 would make more APL2 users, but the existing APL2 users would suffer because they would be able to command less money for the support they already offer.

slver 5y ago

I know the cultural understanding among developers is that FOSS is "altruistic", but that's often wrong. It's all about incentives. If there's no incentive behind an OSS community working on this project, it'll just burn out a few naive souls, and kill off the project for the rest. Giving the project to a company which has commercial interest in maintaining it and supporting it through commercial licensing could mean a better future for APL2. This aftermath is very typical when a project is "interesting" from commercial perspective, but it's quite "boring" from technical/enthusiast perspective. I'm not saying it's ALWAYS one way or another. But it depends on the APL2 audience. We gotta start seeing FOSS as a tool, not as charity or as some sort of "giving to the world". We're engineers, or at least we should think as engineers. Engineers know no solution is just "best" at everything. Everything has pros and cons, and you need to consider things in context. That also applies to IP management with regards to what's best for a project's continued existence.