May 09, 2012
On Wed, 09 May 2012 17:49:34 -0400, deadalnix <deadalnix@gmail.com> wrote:

> Le 09/05/2012 23:38, Nick Sabalausky a écrit :
>> Maybe, but I suspect most "not OSS" complaints would be coming from people
>> who don't even know that much about D, and are just knee-jerking over "The
>> main compiler's backend isn't OSS?!? Well fuck that, then!"
>>
>> 'Course, I have zero evidence to back up that assertion.
>>
>
> Just compare the number of contribution since the project have been mostly open sourced on on github. Numbers speak for themselves.

I think this was more of a factor of github than open source -- The compiler was open sourced (in the same manner as it is on github) for years on dsource.org under subversion.

See here: http://dsource.org/projects/dmd/changeset/183

-Steve
May 09, 2012
On 10/05/12 00:27, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> The only thing that isn't fully open source is the dmd backend, and dmd gets
> more pull requests than druntime and Phobos combined (it's also the project
> with the biggest bottleneck, because _everything_ goes through Walter rather
> than a small group of developers). So, I don't think that the license is
> negatively impacting us at all as far as contributions go. It was having the
> source in svn rather than in git up on github which was the real problem.
> We've gotten _way_ more contributions (especially to dmd) ever since we put it
> all up on github.

Sure.  I've said a number of times that I don't think the backend licence is a short-term problem, and that's because I don't see the multiple-avenues-of-contribution aspect as a short-term issue either.  The user and contributor base is currently too small for it to be a factor.

I do think, though, that it may be something that starts to bite as the community scales up in size.
May 09, 2012
On Wed, 09 May 2012 18:32:26 -0400, Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@webdrake.net> wrote:

> But there are people who _aren't_ willing to make that compromise, and others who will be put off before they even realize that compromise is possible.

To be perfectly honest, I don't really care :)  I'm here to get stuff done, not debate about ideology.  Those who wish to complain about or avoid D, will.  And I really can't do much about that.  There are those who will refuse to use D because it's not copyleft.  Good luck getting those people on board ;)

I think we have a pretty awesome and talented team working on D, and in the end, performance is what matters, not who your friends are.

-Steve
May 09, 2012
On 10/05/12 00:41, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> I do think, though, that it may be something that starts to bite as the
> community scales up in size.

I'll add one more thing on this: you probably don't know whether or not you're missing out, as there's no real way you can measure the number of people who would like to engage with D but don't because of the licensing issues.

There _might_ be a surprise waiting the day the announcement is made: "reference D compiler now fully open source".
May 09, 2012
On Thursday, May 10, 2012 00:49:17 Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> On 10/05/12 00:41, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> > I do think, though, that it may be something that starts to bite as the community scales up in size.
> 
> I'll add one more thing on this: you probably don't know whether or not you're missing out, as there's no real way you can measure the number of people who would like to engage with D but don't because of the licensing issues.
> 
> There _might_ be a surprise waiting the day the announcement is made: "reference D compiler now fully open source".

But since that will never happen, it's a moot issue. It doesn't really matter if we would have had 10 times as many people contributing (which I very much doubt), Walter can't change the backend's license, so we're stuck with how things are. There's really no point in arguing about how it affects us (be it positively or negatively), since we can't do anything about it.

But gdc and ldc _do_ exist, so for the really picky people, there are fully FOSS options. And as the front-end stabilizes, which backend you use should matter less and less, so it should become less and less of an issue.

- Jonathan M Davis
May 09, 2012
On 10/05/12 00:45, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Wed, 09 May 2012 18:32:26 -0400, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
> <joseph.wakeling@webdrake.net> wrote:
>
>> But there are people who _aren't_ willing to make that compromise, and others
>> who will be put off before they even realize that compromise is possible.
>
> There are those who will refuse to use D because it's not copyleft. Good luck getting those people on board ;)

Do you mean there are those who will refuse to use D if it _is_ copyleft?

I've never heard of anybody refusing to use a piece of software because it had e.g. a permissive licence.  Refuse to contribute, possibly, but that's a much more extreme and fringe position than the "must be open source!" one.

> I think we have a pretty awesome and talented team working on D, and in the end,
> performance is what matters, not who your friends are.

Re the team, we absolutely agree. :-)

Re friends: I always think it's a good idea to have lots, and from as diverse a range of backgrounds as possible.  I just don't see what _good_ it does to have the backend non-OS, given the possible harms it can do.

The short-term benefit is that the status quo allows the team to keep improving the language with minimal hassle (not having to learn a new backend model or negotiate with Symantec over licensing), but that's only a benefit up until the point where D2 stabilizes.  Beyond that, any advantage vanishes.
May 09, 2012
On Wed, May 09, 2012 at 06:53:37PM -0400, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Thursday, May 10, 2012 00:49:17 Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> > On 10/05/12 00:41, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> > > I do think, though, that it may be something that starts to bite as the community scales up in size.
> > 
> > I'll add one more thing on this: you probably don't know whether or not you're missing out, as there's no real way you can measure the number of people who would like to engage with D but don't because of the licensing issues.
> > 
> > There _might_ be a surprise waiting the day the announcement is made: "reference D compiler now fully open source".
> 
> But since that will never happen, it's a moot issue. It doesn't really matter if we would have had 10 times as many people contributing (which I very much doubt), Walter can't change the backend's license, so we're stuck with how things are. There's really no point in arguing about how it affects us (be it positively or negatively), since we can't do anything about it.
[...]

Dumb question: what prevents someone from rewriting dmd's backend with new code that isn't entangled by the previous license?


T

-- 
WINDOWS = Will Install Needless Data On Whole System -- CompuMan
May 09, 2012
On 10/05/12 00:53, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> But since that will never happen, it's a moot issue. It doesn't really matter
> if we would have had 10 times as many people contributing (which I very much
> doubt), Walter can't change the backend's license, so we're stuck with how
> things are. There's really no point in arguing about how it affects us (be it
> positively or negatively), since we can't do anything about it.
>
> But gdc and ldc _do_ exist, so for the really picky people, there are fully
> FOSS options. And as the front-end stabilizes, which backend you use should
> matter less and less, so it should become less and less of an issue.

I don't understand why the project couldn't (or wouldn't) simply bless GDC or LDC as the reference implementation.  I do see why in the short term, as finalizing/stabilizing the front end, runtime and development library are much higher-priority goals, but in the longer term it seems like a viable possibility.

It also seems beneficial to do so given that GDC and LDC offer much better possibilities for supporting architectures beyond x86/x86-64.
May 09, 2012
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 01:03:01AM +0200, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> On 10/05/12 00:45, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
[...]
> >There are those who will refuse to use D because it's not copyleft. Good luck getting those people on board ;)
> 
> Do you mean there are those who will refuse to use D if it _is_ copyleft?
> 
> I've never heard of anybody refusing to use a piece of software because it had e.g. a permissive licence.  Refuse to contribute, possibly, but that's a much more extreme and fringe position than the "must be open source!" one.

There are both. Some proprietary developers avoid GPL like the plague due to the whole "you must publish all your precious source code if you distribute the binary" issue. Some other developers, admittedly in the minority compared to the first group, refuse to have anything to do with non-GPL'd code (or at least, have an OSS-compliant license) because of idealogical concerns. (For example, you will not be able to convince an FSF developer to adopt dmd.)


[...]
> Re friends: I always think it's a good idea to have lots, and from as diverse a range of backgrounds as possible.  I just don't see what _good_ it does to have the backend non-OS, given the possible harms it can do.

But that's just crying over spilt milk. Walter has already tried to change the license, to no avail.


> The short-term benefit is that the status quo allows the team to keep improving the language with minimal hassle (not having to learn a new backend model or negotiate with Symantec over licensing), but that's only a benefit up until the point where D2 stabilizes. Beyond that, any advantage vanishes.

So are you proposing that we rewrite the dmd backend with fresh code that's not encumbered by the current license?


T

-- 
Computers are like a jungle: they have monitor lizards, rams, mice, c-moss, binary trees... and bugs.
May 09, 2012
On 05/10/12 01:04, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Wed, May 09, 2012 at 06:53:37PM -0400, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> On Thursday, May 10, 2012 00:49:17 Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
>>> On 10/05/12 00:41, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
>>>> I do think, though, that it may be something that starts to bite as the community scales up in size.
>>>
>>> I'll add one more thing on this: you probably don't know whether or not you're missing out, as there's no real way you can measure the number of people who would like to engage with D but don't because of the licensing issues.
>>>
>>> There _might_ be a surprise waiting the day the announcement is made: "reference D compiler now fully open source".
>>
>> But since that will never happen, it's a moot issue. It doesn't really matter if we would have had 10 times as many people contributing (which I very much doubt), Walter can't change the backend's license, so we're stuck with how things are. There's really no point in arguing about how it affects us (be it positively or negatively), since we can't do anything about it.
> [...]
> 
> Dumb question: what prevents someone from rewriting dmd's backend with new code that isn't entangled by the previous license?

Something must, as otherwise there would ay least already be llvm and gcc backends. Oh wait...

artur