PART I.
REBOL is the "language of the free" yet IT is not free.
The following are 3 incompatible statements made by
Carl & Company.
----------
On the posting "Website & Direction", Carl says:
Yes. This is our "first wave" business direction. It's a
fertile ground that we think has great potential. It gives
us the niche we need to build our business, but gives us a
lot of dynamic range to expand into other markets as we
succeed.
Besides, it gives all us REBOL folks, both you and me, the
ability to now live off of our favorite hobby. 8)
----------
http://rebol.com/technology.html says:
REBOL/Core ... is provided free and with unrestricted
distribution to encourage the adoption and use of REBOL
applications as well as promote knowledge of the REBOL
Language and application engine.
----------
REBOL TECHNOLOGIES SOFTWARE END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT says:
REBOL Technologies (REBOL) hereby grants you a
non-exclusive and non-transferable license to use the
Software and Documentation for the purpose of designing,
developing, writing, testing and running computer software
applications.
----------
What does all this mean?
How do "all us REBOL folks ... now live off of our favorite
hobby" when Core's license is "non-transferable" and why is
the license so when Core is supposedly "provided ... with
unrestricted distribution"?
------------------------------------------------------------
PART II.
I said, on 04/04/00, as "Core Distribution Question":
If I write a client-side application using REBOL/Core,
may I distribute it without requiring users to obtain
their own copy through rebol.com?
The Core agreement seems to say "no" in that part about
non-transferability. I'm hoping I got this wrong as it
would put a damper on the distribution of my application.
"REBOL Technologies (REBOL) hereby grants you a non-
exclusive and non-transferable license to use the Software
and Documentation for the purpose of designing, developing,
writing, testing and running computer software applications.
If you do not agree with the terms herein, then do not use
the software."
Take Java for example. The runtime can be separated from
the development environment so they have separate license
agreements but that is not the case with REBOL since it is
both the environment and the runtime. If the answer to my
question really is "no" then I am disappointed both for the
viability of my application and for that of REBOL in
general as it will be difficult for it to overtake Java's
level of market penetration without changing the agreement.
----------
The response from [EMAIL PROTECTED] was:
Perfect timing. We're closely reviewing our user license
right now and are re-considering the transferability of
REBOL for non-commercial uses.
----------
Before I got the response from Dan, I sent the same message
to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with the following added:
I posted the above to the Core list but didn't get a
response. Here'e some more about it:
I just basically want to put up "myapplication.r" along
with "rebol.exe" (Core) on a website and allow people to
download them. I'm willing to keep track of unique
downloads (possibly in the form of the email-attachment
method used by View) so that I can report the number of
users to REBOL Technologies for the purpose of you
knowing how much Core is out there.
Please let me know if I can do this and if not, then why.
----------
The response I got was:
According to the current license agreement, you are not
allowed to redistribute the REBOL interpreter without
a prior agreement with our Business Development department.
There are a number of such agreements which have been
issued. To request such an agreement, please contact
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Business Development department is considering the
possibility of relaxing the license agreement, but there
has been no determination to do so as of this date.
----------
Is "closely reviewing" still going on a month a half later
or has the old license not been updated on the site?
I want to write an application which I can distribute, along
with the "runtime", so that users aren't put off by going
through the process of getting it from REBOL's site as that
is very developer-oriented.
Even if I ask users to go to that site and get it for
themselves before they can run my application, this type
of distribution will give REBOL a wrong indication of the
number of "developers" as the download count will be vastly
inflated. The questions under "2" on the download page
don't help REBOL much because all my users would answer
"personal/other/no/blank".
Also, even if the license has changed, "non-commercial uses"
does little to help me. I want to profit from my work and
now, from Carl's post (above), we know that Carl wants that
as well: "both you and me". So, how am I supposed to do
that when my situation is such that I'm neither getting paid
by someone to write REBOL code nor am I profiting, in an
ancillary manner, through web-based sales supported by a
REBOL-served application?
I admit that I did not follow up on Support's invitation to
"request such an agreement" because I was feeling
disillusioned, which made it easier to assume that it would
cost more money than I could afford since other customers
were most likely big companies who could pay large fees
to imbed REBOL into their products, but I certainly wouldn't
be averse to sharing my profits with the company who made
my application possible.
When I first found REBOL, my mind lit up with the promise
of a great future for the wide-spread application of various
software ideas I have. However, I was put off by the public
unavailability of View. Then, after restructuring my ideas
to work around that, by temporarily using Core along with
some other software for graphical I/O, I was put off (again)
by this arcane distribution limitation. I stopped all my
work in REBOL and resigned from the Core list but kept
checking it on rebol.org for updates to see what was going
on.
Today, I saw the posting about the relaunch of the REBOL
site and got excited about some of what was being said,
especially the part about View being released in June, but
was disappointed to find the Core license to be the same.
Will this not change for Core? Will the same limitations
apply to View? Will View really be as "free" as Core is now
and will they both get to be as free as I need them to be?
REBOL has a revamped site, June releases of both View and
the Core book and the number of downloads has gone from
100,000 to 250,000. Isn't it time to bring the license up
to date?
I see the REBOL site relaunch coinciding with my birthday as
a sign of good things to come in my future with REBOL.
Carl, is my optimism misplaced?
------------------------------------------------------------
PART III.
The following was posted anonymously (read: not by me) to
Slashdot.
It was near the end of a long conversation about REBOL
which, in usual Usenet-type fashion, degenerated into
several tangents which had little to do with REBOL but
which nonetheless serve up some important points from
the past and the present. It's a succinct, yet scathing,
attack on (or defense against) people who use less-than-
rebellious technologies and who can't be open-minded
enough to change.
I reformatted this to fit better here but have not edited
any of the wording. I'm including it due to the historical
perspective it gives and as an example of the kind of post
which could occur in the future, about REBOL (instead of
Wintel), if the Core/View licenses aren't changed to reflect
what REBOL actually seems to be accomplishing: it's promise
of rebellion.
----------
An informal Slashdot Quiz we don't want to hear about ***
Questions:
1. How many posters worked with actual AREXX (not REXX crap
but real *AREXX* on an *Amiga*)?
Only one, a mere pittance. Another sounded like they had
some experience, but I can tell you, REXX and AREXX are
two different beasts.
2. How many posters think that Amigans should not be using
Linux; that Linux is "too elite"?
Apparently too many. You folks seemed to have forgotten
that there are ALOT of defectors from the Amiga camp that
left because, for once, you could get a PC that didn't
come with Winblows. I'm one of them, and I can say with
certainty that if Linux had not offered what it did, I
would have NEVER switched.
For God's sake man, who the hell wants SEGMENTED 32-bit
MEMORY? Multipliers that occur in only ONE specific
regsiter, and additions in another? Only four primary
CPU registers? 36 bit flat address space - now there's a
standard that only Real Men Use(tm). Parity bits - hell,
let's include some tools from the stone age as well. Oh,
and there's my favorite, segmented MEMORY POINTERS from
hell in MicroSquish C, despite the known assumption that
C pointers are for a FLAT ADDRESS SPACE. (don't even try
to double-guess that last one... you can't tell me that
pointer arithmetic was meant for a segmented arch.)
Who dropped the ball on that one? Forget that last
question - it should be, "Who dropped acid at Intel while
designing such a lame chip family as the x86?" I guess
that's why people paid $1500 for a computer for years and
years...must be all of that wonderful stuff that you get
in the box.
And people wondered why the Amiga hung around for so
long...get a clue...because it was USABLE. Because it was
PROGRAMMABLE. And because it didn't consist of a 8088,
64k memory, tape-drive-with-5 1/4"-floppy piece of crap
in 1985. The Amiga 1000 (incidentally released in 1985),
considered long obsolete, beat the crap out of PCs, Macs,
etc. out of the BOX. Ever wonder why the Mac "got color"
real fast? Why the PC soundcard market "magically
appeared" overnight? Why Intel did everything in their
power to kill the m68k line of chips? (answer to that
last question: the 68060, the last chip in the family
ever made before Mot pulled the plug, beats the crap out
of a pentium at the same clock speed. Gee whiz, I guess
having 16x 32-bit generic registers makes a difference...
oops, that must be a RISC chip I'm talking about...naw,
it couldn't be, after all, we know that RISC was a
completely new concept...it must be a rumor that 68k
chips had this feature A LONG TIME before RISC showed up).
The one salvation of the x86 arch. is Linux.
Win95 is plain stupid, with it's "API flavor of the month"
approach and "wonderful Industry backing" (oops, I mean
wholesale company buyouts, legal pandering, strong-arm
OEM license tactics, astroturf campaigns, lame EULA
agreements, big-brother-GUIDs, vendor lock-in, young-
programmers-with-no-life-and-burnout, and quasi-sometimes
-it-works memory protection)...I think I'll reach for a
vomit bucket...
3. How many posters have CS Degrees?
Who knows? Who cares? Apparently you ALL have degrees,
but if that's the case, then what the hell are you doing
here, instead of making money before you loose your job
at 40 because of the rampant age discrimination in the
industry?
4. How many posters feel that only people with CS Degrees
should have the right to make programs?
Too many, but that's OK, we understand your need for job
security. After all, programmers and analysts should be
exempt from the kinds of problems you find in every other
industry...they're so special, aren't they?
5. How many posters missed the boat entirely?
Almost all. This is a MESSAGING language, i.e. it should
replace AREXX for a reason. If you feel that messaging
should only be done with shared memory, semaphores, high-
speed switched networks, and lots of C code, then GO
SOMEWHERE ELSE AND FORGET YOU READ ALL OF THIS. I don't
have several lifetimes to live to write crappily-written
C code that looks like my computer puked, just so that I
can get program A to send commands to program B and have
program B provide feedback to program A...while doing
REAL WORK.
6. How many posters have their head up their ass?
It's too difficult to determine without pulling several
heads out of several asses. That's OK, you can't see me
this way as I sneak up on your job and take it.
* * *
A real disappointment, folks. If you can't see the value of
a SCRIPTING language that allows you to simul-multi-fucking-
taneously controll SEVERAL programs, and allow SEVERAL
programs to interact that have completely different designs
and uses, then I guess you don't have a use for shell
scripts, either...or perl. Come to think of it, why bother
learning anything new? We should just stick with the
wonderful set of tools that we already have. I guess that's
why x86 still sells strong, but can't even match the
processing power of a Sony Playstation 2 (that's right
folks, your average 400Mhz/Voodoo/128Mb RAM PC can't hold a
candle to a $299 game console - tells you something about
the words PCs SUCK WIND OUT OF THE BOX).
This is just about the last straw. Slashdot used to be an
interesting place to hear the news. Now it's just a clique
of "3l33t3 P33C33 d00z with 4ttit00dz".
Moral of this mindless rant: Before you piss on something,
check out what you're pissing on. It might just be a live
wire...
Typical Programmer's Response: "Oh, it's a potential
threat, let's bury our heads in the sand! Hey, what's
that I feel up my ass, and why does the sand stink?"
------------------------------------------------------------
That's it!
Lorraine Magnus
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