On 17/10/10 12:03, Ben Franksen wrote: > wren ng thornton wrote: > >> On 10/16/10 10:48 AM, Ben Franksen wrote: >> >>> Don Stewart wrote: >>> >>>> It is open source, and was born open source. It is the product of >>>> research. >>>> >>> How can a language be open source, or rather, how can it *not* be open >>> source? The point of a (programming) language is that it has a published >>> ('open') definition. Nothing prevents anyone from creating a proprietary >>> compiler or interpreter for Haskell, AFAIK. >>> >> Miranda[TM] is/was a proprietary language, quite definitively so. If >> nothing else, this should be apparent by the fact that every reference >> to it in research papers of the era (a) included the TM sigil, and (b) >> had footnotes indicating who the IP holders are. That was before my >> time, but I was under the impression that Haskell was open from the >> beginning ---by express intention--- in order to enable work on lazy >> functional languages without being encumbered by Miranda[TM]'s closed >> nature. >> >> For that matter, until rather recently Java was very much a closed >> language defined by the runtime system provided by Sun Microsystems and >> not defined by the sequence of characters accepted by that system, nor >> by the behavior of the system when it accepts them. Sun even went >> through some trouble to try to shut out competitive development of >> runtime systems such as SoyLatte, IcedTea, and the like. >> >> Even the venerable C language has a long history of companies making >> proprietary extensions to the language in order to require you to buy >> their compiler, and they would most certainly pursue legal action if >> someone else copied the features. This is why GCC is as big a coup for >> the free/open-source movement as Linux is--- long before GCC changed its >> name and focus to being a compiler collection. >> >> The languages which are open-source are in close correspondence with the >> languages which have a free/open-source implementation. There are a lot >> of them, including the vast majority of recent languages. But don't be >> seduced into thinking that a language is a predicate on acceptable >> strings, a transducer from those strings into computer behaviors, or >> that such predicates and transducers are public domain. >> > Sigh. Yes, you are right, of course. All this is true, sadly. There are > stupid people who think that they can own a programming language. I hope > they will go the way all the other mis-adapted creatures have gone and just > die out. > > Still, "Haskell is an open source product" doesn't sound right to me. > Even "Haskell is open source" (without the "product") has a bad ring > because "source" is short for "source code" and source code is not > something a programming language has. > > I agree that "non-proprietary" is a valid and important characterization of > the language. This should be mentioned where we speak about libraries and > community, since the active and friendly community is the motor behind the > growing set of libraries, and you get this sort of participation only with > a free/non-proprietary language. This applies not only to individuals but > to companies as well, maybe even more. > > I anticipate the objection that potential commercial users might be scared > off by the terms "non-proprietary" or "free", whereas the term "open > source" has been coined to (and probably actually does) sound more commerce > friendly. To countermand such an effect, we can point out that most > libraries have non-copyleft licenses and that there are a number of > companies who have done and still do a lot to support and advance Haskell. > > Cheers > Ben > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-Cafe mailing list > Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe > > I am somewhat sympathetic to your argument, but I care far less overall.
Nevertheless, perhaps this would appease: "Haskell is an open standard with a robust open source implementation." -- Tony Morris http://tmorris.net/ _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe