Of course I might fail to understand the reason :) First - OM is licensed under GPL (see their website). While the word "open" in the context of GPL can be dis

Of course I might fail to understand the reason :) First - OM is licensed under GPL (see their website). While the word "open" in the context of GPL can be discutable depending on the view of the gp, that's not a fault of LispWorks. Second - if not the GPL has been the confusion in the gp, then - to run AND develop for OM no one needs a commercial license of LispWorks (the runtime/compiler/lister/editor are distributed with OM). A professional tool like LispWorks is needed only to recompile OM itself, which is so or so not a hurdle for the gp until he doesn't gain enough knowledge about and experience with OM AND Common Lisp. By the time he gets there, I'm sure - he will either decide that neither OM or Lisp are his things and then again the license is irrelevant - or he will decide to pursue that path in which case the costs for LW are a bargain in comparison to the value one gets. If not OM, but Lisp seems to be something for him at the end - even then he can choose from about a dozen different implementations with different licensing terms from GPL though Open Source up to licenses for tens of tausends per CPU per year. Third - "open" can be a bit ladden with "free", but it can mean also an "open architecture" or a "development of software open to the public" or whatever. Again - not reading what is written on the website of the OM creators doesn't do good to the gp. Last - if you or gp mean that one has to bite in every carrot with an engraved "free" on it is serious then... :) But I started with the idea to help the gp to look deeper before using strong language and less to continue bashing on soft reasoning. Peace and regards