I agree with your post, I just want to make a couple of minor corrections.

On 6/27/2013 4:58 AM, Leandro Lucarella wrote:
> Do you really think C++ took off because there are commercial
> implementations?

I got into the C++ fray in the 1987-88 time frame. At the time, there was a great debate between C++ and Objective-C, and they were running neck-and-neck. I was casting about looking for a way to get a competitive edge with my C compiler, and investigated.

Objective-C was put out by Stepstone. They wanted royalties from anyone who implemented a clone, and kept a tight fist over the licensing.

C++ only existed in its AT&T cfront implementation. I wrote a letter to AT&T's lawyers, asking if I could create a C++ clone, and they phoned me up and were very nice. They said sure, and I wouldn't have to pay any license or royalties.

So I went with C++. I don't really know if cfront was open source at the time or not, but I never looked at its source. I think cfront source came with a paid license for unix, but I'm not positive.

Anyhow, I wound up implementing the first native C++ compiler for the PC. Directly afterward, C++ took off like a rocket. Was it because of Zortech C++? I think there's strong evidence it was. A lot of programmers turned up their noses at the peasants programming on DOS, but that's where the action was in the 1980's, and ZTC++ had no realistic competitors.

You could also see the results in Usenet. Postings about C++ and O-C were neck-and-neck until ZTC++ came out, and then things tilted heavily in C++'s favor, and O-C disappeared into oblivion (later to be resurrected by Steve Jobs, but that's another tale).

ZTC++ was so successful that Borland and Microsoft (according to rumor) abandoned their efforts at making a proprietary OOP C, and went with C++.

ZTC++ was closed source, as were Borland's Turbo C++ and Microsoft C++.

> Do you think being a standardized language didn't help?

C++ wasn't standardized until 1998, 10 years later. The 90's were pretty much the heyday of C++.

> Do you think the fact that there was a free implementation around that
> it supported virtually any existing platform didn't help? Do you think
> the fact was it was (almost) compatible with C (which was born freeish,
> since back then software was freely shared between universities) didn't
> help?

ZTC++ was cheap as dirt, and at the time people didn't mind paying for compilers. Those days are over, though. People have different expectations today.


> No. A standard is something that was standardized by a standard
> committee which, ideally, have some credits to do so. C++ is
> standardized by ISO. I guess Walter and Andrei can give you more
> details, since I think they both were involved in the standardization of
> C++.

I've attended a few ISO C++ meetings, but I never became a voting member, and have had pretty much zero influence over the direction C++ took after the 1980's.

The bottom line was the open source movement was not a very significant force in the 1980's when C++ gained traction. Open source really exploded around 2000, along with the internet. I wonder if open source perhaps needed the internet in order to be viable.

On Saturday, 29 June 2013 at 08:37:48 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> The bottom line was the open source movement was not a very significant force in the 1980's when C++ gained traction. Open source really exploded around 2000, along with the internet. I wonder if open source perhaps needed the internet in order to be viable.

That's a very good point.  It's before my time really, but if I understand the history right, the main way to get hold of copies of stuff like GCC in the early days was to pay for a set of disks with it on -- and there was no infrastructure for easily sharing changes.  So neither the free-as-in-beer or free-as-in-freedom advantages were as readily apparent or effective as they are today.

Walter Bright, el 29 de June a las 01:37 me escribiste:
> The bottom line was the open source movement was not a very significant force in the 1980's when C++ gained traction. Open source really exploded around 2000, along with the internet. I wonder if open source perhaps needed the internet in order to be viable.

Yes, I think that's the whole point, without Internet open source was extremely niche, without resources to distribute it, it was almost impossible to take off, and almost impossible to collaborate, which is the big different open source have vs traditional commercial software.

Even when extremely interesting, I think the ZTC++ history before open source existed or was really viable (the free software movement started in 1983, the FSF was founded in 1985 and the open source definition was made in 1998) is irrelevant in terms to analyze if right now it would be valuable to make the reference compiler partly closed.

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca)                     http://llucax.com.ar/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GPG Key: 5F5A8D05 (F8CD F9A7 BF00 5431 4145  104C 949E BFB6 5F5A 8D05)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
EL PRIMER MONITO DEL MILENIO...
	-- Crónica TV

On Saturday, 29 June 2013 at 08:37:48 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> I agree with your post, I just want to make a couple of minor corrections.
>
> On 6/27/2013 4:58 AM, Leandro Lucarella wrote:
>> Do you really think C++ took off because there are commercial
>> implementations?
>
> I got into the C++ fray in the 1987-88 time frame. At the time, there was a great debate between C++ and Objective-C, and they were running neck-and-neck. I was casting about looking for a way to get a competitive edge with my C compiler, and investigated.
>
> Objective-C was put out by Stepstone. They wanted royalties from anyone who implemented a clone, and kept a tight fist over the licensing.
>
> C++ only existed in its AT&T cfront implementation. I wrote a letter to AT&T's lawyers, asking if I could create a C++ clone, and they phoned me up and were very nice. They said sure, and I wouldn't have to pay any license or royalties.
>
> So I went with C++. I don't really know if cfront was open source at the time or not, but I never looked at its source. I think cfront source came with a paid license for unix, but I'm not positive.
>
> Anyhow, I wound up implementing the first native C++ compiler for the PC. Directly afterward, C++ took off like a rocket. Was it because of Zortech C++? I think there's strong evidence it was. A lot of programmers turned up their noses at the peasants programming on DOS, but that's where the action was in the 1980's, and ZTC++ had no realistic competitors.
>
> You could also see the results in Usenet. Postings about C++ and O-C were neck-and-neck until ZTC++ came out, and then things tilted heavily in C++'s favor, and O-C disappeared into oblivion (later to be resurrected by Steve Jobs, but that's another tale).
>
> ZTC++ was so successful that Borland and Microsoft (according to rumor) abandoned their efforts at making a proprietary OOP C, and went with C++.
>
> ZTC++ was closed source, as were Borland's Turbo C++ and Microsoft C++.
>
>> Do you think being a standardized language didn't help?
>
> C++ wasn't standardized until 1998, 10 years later. The 90's were pretty much the heyday of C++.
>
>> Do you think the fact that there was a free implementation around that
>> it supported virtually any existing platform didn't help? Do you think
>> the fact was it was (almost) compatible with C (which was born freeish,
>> since back then software was freely shared between universities) didn't
>> help?
>
> ZTC++ was cheap as dirt, and at the time people didn't mind paying for compilers. Those days are over, though. People have different expectations today.
>
>
>> No. A standard is something that was standardized by a standard
>> committee which, ideally, have some credits to do so. C++ is
>> standardized by ISO. I guess Walter and Andrei can give you more
>> details, since I think they both were involved in the standardization of
>> C++.
>
> I've attended a few ISO C++ meetings, but I never became a voting member, and have had pretty much zero influence over the direction C++ took after the 1980's.
>
> The bottom line was the open source movement was not a very significant force in the 1980's when C++ gained traction. Open source really exploded around 2000, along with the internet. I wonder if open source perhaps needed the internet in order to be viable.

Wow. That's interesting reading. Thanks for the history lesson!

On 6/29/2013 5:08 AM, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> On Saturday, 29 June 2013 at 08:37:48 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> The bottom line was the open source movement was not a very significant force
>> in the 1980's when C++ gained traction. Open source really exploded around
>> 2000, along with the internet. I wonder if open source perhaps needed the
>> internet in order to be viable.
>
> That's a very good point.  It's before my time really, but if I understand the
> history right, the main way to get hold of copies of stuff like GCC in the early
> days was to pay for a set of disks with it on -- and there was no infrastructure
> for easily sharing changes.  So neither the free-as-in-beer or
> free-as-in-freedom advantages were as readily apparent or effective as they are
> today.

True, distribution was mainly by physical mail. There was some via BBS's and Usenet, but these were severely limited by bandwidth.

I'd receive bug reports by fax, paper listings, and mailed floppies.

On 6/29/2013 9:10 AM, Leandro Lucarella wrote:
> Even when extremely interesting, I think the ZTC++ history before open
> source existed or was really viable (the free software movement started
> in 1983, the FSF was founded in 1985 and the open source definition was
> made in 1998) is irrelevant in terms to analyze if right now it would be
> valuable to make the reference compiler partly closed.


Yes, I agree. Things are fundamentally different now.

On 6/29/2013 7:56 PM, CJS wrote:
> Wow. That's interesting reading. Thanks for the history lesson!

There are other versions of this history, none of which mention the role ZTC++ played in C++ attaining critical mass, so I like to repeat my version now and then :-)

I was wondering if Walter or Andrei would respond to this thread.

On Saturday, 29 June 2013 at 08:37:48 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> I agree with your post, I just want to make a couple of minor corrections.
What exactly do you agree with Luca about, considering all your "minor corrections" basically demolish all his points? ;)

Your C++ history was really interesting, as I first used it in '97, right when it was peaking.

> ZTC++ was cheap as dirt, and at the time people didn't mind paying for compilers. Those days are over, though. People have different expectations today.
There's no doubt that developers have been spoiled by all the free and shareware tools out there these days.

What do you think of my idea of segmenting the market though?  Keep providing a free-as-in-beer dmd, like you are now, for the people who want it, while Remedy and others who want performance pay for a dmd that puts out more performant code, with those improvements slowly merged back into the free dmd over time.

If you are not interested in selling a paid compiler yourself, I've noted that there's nothing stopping someone else from doing this.  They can take the dmd frontend under the Artistic license, compile it with the BSD-licensed llvm backend and boost-licensed druntime and phobos, and sell a paid compiler, without any permission from you or any other D contributors.

You could not do anything legally to stop this, as the permissive OSS licenses allow it.  However, as one of the main authors of this code, do you have any preference for or against someone taking your code to do this?

On 6/29/2013 11:39 PM, Joakim wrote:
> What do you think of my idea of segmenting the market though? Keep providing a
> free-as-in-beer dmd, like you are now, for the people who want it, while Remedy
> and others who want performance pay for a dmd that puts out more performant
> code, with those improvements slowly merged back into the free dmd over time.

It won't work. Those days are gone.

> If you are not interested in selling a paid compiler yourself, I've noted that
> there's nothing stopping someone else from doing this.  They can take the dmd
> frontend under the Artistic license, compile it with the BSD-licensed llvm
> backend and boost-licensed druntime and phobos, and sell a paid compiler,
> without any permission from you or any other D contributors.
>
> You could not do anything legally to stop this, as the permissive OSS licenses
> allow it.  However, as one of the main authors of this code, do you have any
> preference for or against someone taking your code to do this?

Part of issuing it under a permissive license is I won't try to block someone from doing whatever they want to that is allowed by the license.

On Sunday, 30 June 2013 at 09:34:14 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 6/29/2013 11:39 PM, Joakim wrote:
>> What do you think of my idea of segmenting the market though? Keep providing a
>> free-as-in-beer dmd, like you are now, for the people who want it, while Remedy
>> and others who want performance pay for a dmd that puts out more performant
>> code, with those improvements slowly merged back into the free dmd over time.
>
> It won't work. Those days are gone.
I disagree.  We'll find out.

>> If you are not interested in selling a paid compiler yourself, I've noted that
>> there's nothing stopping someone else from doing this.  They can take the dmd
>> frontend under the Artistic license, compile it with the BSD-licensed llvm
>> backend and boost-licensed druntime and phobos, and sell a paid compiler,
>> without any permission from you or any other D contributors.
>>
>> You could not do anything legally to stop this, as the permissive OSS licenses
>> allow it.  However, as one of the main authors of this code, do you have any
>> preference for or against someone taking your code to do this?
>
> Part of issuing it under a permissive license is I won't try to block someone from doing whatever they want to that is allowed by the license.
I understand, but that wasn't exactly my question.

I wondered if you have any opinion on such code reuse, if someone takes your code and closes it, even if you wouldn't try to block it because you have already released it under a permissive license.

Some wouldn't try to close the source if you expressed a preference that it not be done- I have no such compunction, if the license allows closing source, but others might- just wondering if you have an opinion or preference on your source being closed up.

Thanks for all the great work you have done on D and the dmd compiler.  As much as I'd like to see a commercial implementation, it is amazing how much you have given away for free. :)