4 ms·

I think you can look at some of the other replies in this thread to see how deeply this can be misunderstood. And I think the fear is more about losing the mean

I think you can look at some of the other replies in this thread to see how deeply this can be misunderstood. And I think the fear is more about losing the meaning of dynamicland. The source code isn't the idea, the idea is. That's what needs to be communicated. The web page is huge, though, with an unbelievable amount of information if you want to build your own. https://dynamicland.org/archive/2023/Front_shelf https://dynamicland.org/archive/2023/Front_shelf

sorrythanks 2y ago
there's also a much deeper explanation of the why here: https://dynamicland.org/2024/Is_Realtalk_open_source/ https://dynamicland.org/2024/Is_Realtalk_open_source/
- Uehreka 2y ago
  I don’t like the answers they give on that page. Every single one feels like a dodge.
  - sorrythanks 2y ago
    It seems to me less that they are a "dodge" and more that the two of you have philosophical disagreements. If have taken the time to understand what he means when he says "Realtalk is not made of source code", and disagree with his conclusions, that's not quite the same as him being dishonest.
  - lproven 2y ago
    I read your comment, then I read the page. I disagree on every single line. This is not about software. Having the software on its own won't help you. If in 2006, the year before the iPhone came out, you had the software as FOSS, would that help? There was no hardware yet. There was nothing even with a capacitative touch screen with multitouch yet. The whole point of the design was to do away with styli, but all extant touchscreen devices needed styli back then. I was implementing corporate networks in 1991. I built them with NetBEUI for PC-to-PC comms, and IPX/SPX or DECnet for talking to servers. Occasionally all 3. If I gave 1991 me the source of timbl's WorldWideWeb, it would be no use. I didn't have NeXTstep. My corporate workstation ran X11 and talked to servers over it but it didn't run TCP/IP. I had no TCP/IP in the building. The point of the Web is the protocol, having clients and servers. Having docs is much more use than having code. Code is useless fragile stuff. Android reproduces a lot of the interaction model of the iPhone but it came from seeing iPhones and trying iPhones. It did not come from getting source. Nobody ever got the source. Forget the source. Source code doesn't matter. It's an irrelevant distraction. Source code is not the big deal here. Inventing a new way to interact with computers is the big deal here. Getting at the software does not matter.
    - jryan49 2y ago
      So if I want to do this I have to invent everything from scratch like he did?
      - enneff 2y ago
        You have to create a space and find collaborators and build it together from scratch, yes.
      - fwip 2y ago
        Code is not the invention, it is merely the implementation of the invention.
      - lproven 2y ago
        If you think it is the code then you're missing the point. It is the idea. If you want to implement it, then maybe you have to study this implementation, study with the implementors, and understand what it is and what it does and how it does it, and stop obsessing over some ASCII files that encode a little bit of the logic. Life is sometimes a jigsaw puzzle. It is the picture that really matters. Having a map of the shape of all the pieces, with no images, would not really help you. It might after an epic amount of work help you reassemble a square of cardboard but that is not the picture.
Uehreka 2y ago
So like, if they want me to reverse engineer Dynamicland and make my own, fine. But I’m WAY more likely to misunderstand what it’s about through reverse engineering it than I would be if I had actual source code I could study. I’m sure there’s some truly revelatory stuff in the architecture of RealTalk OS, and a reimplementation would be missing all that. If what they want is for people to try and reimplement Dynamicland without their guidance, then they’re certainly doing the right things. But if their goal is to convert people to a new way of thinking about computing, this is not a great approach.
- justin66 2y ago
  > But I’m WAY more likely to misunderstand what it’s about through reverse engineering it than I would be if I had actual source code I could study. What a low opinion you have of yourself. On the contrary, you're likely to learn a lot more (and of course, spend orders of magnitude more time) recreating something interesting from the ground up than you are simply copying the source code. The source code isn't the interesting part.
  - enneff 2y ago
    Hell you might even make something better, which is I suspect one of the unstated reasons why the source is not released.
    - justin66 2y ago
      I can't tell if you're serious.
rtkwe 2y ago
I get that impulse because Bret's pretty good about communicating his whole vision and it definitely has a large amount of philosophy attached to it beyond just the tech, but I fear it's more likely to smother the technology and the idea and ensure it doesn't get much adoption. Right now there's not even a space I could go to to check it out it sounds like because the old physical space was shutdown during COVID and the only implementations now are in a handful (or one?) lab. Much less if I had a space and was interested in trying the exploratory computing ideas for museums and education out before building a larger space I've got nothing to work with. Ultimately trying to tightly control a technology because he wants it to have a particular impact seems like it's just going to ensure it stays a niche demo instead of making and impact at all. If the idea is strong enough people will adopt and adapt it for themselves because it's good.
- sorrythanks 2y ago
  It would be easier to agree with you if there were no examples of closed source software, or even non-software ideas (such as libraries), spreading and having huge impact. Bret is also in no rush here, the plan has taken a decade so far and has milestones ahead of it for a decade more.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    Not trying to say it's inevitable but it's way riskier. There's usually a company behind that selling the software making money to continue the process. Bret has a non-profit and now no physical location to evangelize from. Libraries are an exact counter example to this actually, first the idea doesn't require software and hardware, and second the concept is all there really is to it. Making a DynamicLand clone is clearly possible without access to the code but you have to do a lot of blind reverse engineering working backwards from the implementation. Maybe this is also a little frustration that it's been 10 or so years and there's not actually much new news, it looks better but I'm seemingly further than ever from being able to experiment with it.
- infinite8s 2y ago
  He's thinking 50 years out, not 5 years...

sorrythanks 2y ago

there's also a much deeper explanation of the why here: https://dynamicland.org/2024/Is_Realtalk_open_source/ https://dynamicland.org/2024/Is_Realtalk_open_source/

Uehreka 2y ago
I don’t like the answers they give on that page. Every single one feels like a dodge.
- sorrythanks 2y ago
  It seems to me less that they are a "dodge" and more that the two of you have philosophical disagreements. If have taken the time to understand what he means when he says "Realtalk is not made of source code", and disagree with his conclusions, that's not quite the same as him being dishonest.
- lproven 2y ago
  I read your comment, then I read the page. I disagree on every single line. This is not about software. Having the software on its own won't help you. If in 2006, the year before the iPhone came out, you had the software as FOSS, would that help? There was no hardware yet. There was nothing even with a capacitative touch screen with multitouch yet. The whole point of the design was to do away with styli, but all extant touchscreen devices needed styli back then. I was implementing corporate networks in 1991. I built them with NetBEUI for PC-to-PC comms, and IPX/SPX or DECnet for talking to servers. Occasionally all 3. If I gave 1991 me the source of timbl's WorldWideWeb, it would be no use. I didn't have NeXTstep. My corporate workstation ran X11 and talked to servers over it but it didn't run TCP/IP. I had no TCP/IP in the building. The point of the Web is the protocol, having clients and servers. Having docs is much more use than having code. Code is useless fragile stuff. Android reproduces a lot of the interaction model of the iPhone but it came from seeing iPhones and trying iPhones. It did not come from getting source. Nobody ever got the source. Forget the source. Source code doesn't matter. It's an irrelevant distraction. Source code is not the big deal here. Inventing a new way to interact with computers is the big deal here. Getting at the software does not matter.
  - jryan49 2y ago
    So if I want to do this I have to invent everything from scratch like he did?
    - enneff 2y ago
      You have to create a space and find collaborators and build it together from scratch, yes.
    - fwip 2y ago
      Code is not the invention, it is merely the implementation of the invention.
    - lproven 2y ago
      If you think it is the code then you're missing the point. It is the idea. If you want to implement it, then maybe you have to study this implementation, study with the implementors, and understand what it is and what it does and how it does it, and stop obsessing over some ASCII files that encode a little bit of the logic. Life is sometimes a jigsaw puzzle. It is the picture that really matters. Having a map of the shape of all the pieces, with no images, would not really help you. It might after an epic amount of work help you reassemble a square of cardboard but that is not the picture.

Uehreka 2y ago

So like, if they want me to reverse engineer Dynamicland and make my own, fine. But I’m WAY more likely to misunderstand what it’s about through reverse engineering it than I would be if I had actual source code I could study. I’m sure there’s some truly revelatory stuff in the architecture of RealTalk OS, and a reimplementation would be missing all that. If what they want is for people to try and reimplement Dynamicland without their guidance, then they’re certainly doing the right things. But if their goal is to convert people to a new way of thinking about computing, this is not a great approach.

justin66 2y ago
> But I’m WAY more likely to misunderstand what it’s about through reverse engineering it than I would be if I had actual source code I could study. What a low opinion you have of yourself. On the contrary, you're likely to learn a lot more (and of course, spend orders of magnitude more time) recreating something interesting from the ground up than you are simply copying the source code. The source code isn't the interesting part.
- enneff 2y ago
  Hell you might even make something better, which is I suspect one of the unstated reasons why the source is not released.
  - justin66 2y ago
    I can't tell if you're serious.

rtkwe 2y ago

I get that impulse because Bret's pretty good about communicating his whole vision and it definitely has a large amount of philosophy attached to it beyond just the tech, but I fear it's more likely to smother the technology and the idea and ensure it doesn't get much adoption. Right now there's not even a space I could go to to check it out it sounds like because the old physical space was shutdown during COVID and the only implementations now are in a handful (or one?) lab. Much less if I had a space and was interested in trying the exploratory computing ideas for museums and education out before building a larger space I've got nothing to work with. Ultimately trying to tightly control a technology because he wants it to have a particular impact seems like it's just going to ensure it stays a niche demo instead of making and impact at all. If the idea is strong enough people will adopt and adapt it for themselves because it's good.

sorrythanks 2y ago
It would be easier to agree with you if there were no examples of closed source software, or even non-software ideas (such as libraries), spreading and having huge impact. Bret is also in no rush here, the plan has taken a decade so far and has milestones ahead of it for a decade more.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  Not trying to say it's inevitable but it's way riskier. There's usually a company behind that selling the software making money to continue the process. Bret has a non-profit and now no physical location to evangelize from. Libraries are an exact counter example to this actually, first the idea doesn't require software and hardware, and second the concept is all there really is to it. Making a DynamicLand clone is clearly possible without access to the code but you have to do a lot of blind reverse engineering working backwards from the implementation. Maybe this is also a little frustration that it's been 10 or so years and there's not actually much new news, it looks better but I'm seemingly further than ever from being able to experiment with it.
infinite8s 2y ago
He's thinking 50 years out, not 5 years...