"John S. Gage" wrote:
> Thomas Beale wrote:
> >
> > BUT: the most important way of developing with the kernel for most people
> > will not be modifying the kernel (Same argument
> > as for the Linux kernel core - you don't muck around with it unless you know
> > what you are doing).
>
> Torvald completely controlled the kernel as far as I know and still does
> as far as I know. In CVS terms, anyone could download, but all edits
> had to go through him. But...if Eiffel is proprietary, then the kernel
> is going to be proprietary, barring SmallEiffel
No, the proprietary nature of a piece of software has nothing to do with the
proprietary nature of compilers. The licence being drawn up for GEHR is open
source. Even if there was no free Eiffel compiler available, this would not make
the GEHR kernel proprietary, since the rigthts of the developer are not changed -
they can access & use the system, play with it, submit changes, etc etc. The only
thing that is changed is the _opportunities_ the developer has to do this at
minimal cost.
Now, let's say one developer pays US600 for a full ISE Eiffel environment, and
another pays $0 for SmallEiffel. I can tell you right now that, due to the
superior commercial IDE and language definition support of ISE versus SE, that you
will save the $600 in time quite quickly.
Now imagine if GEHR was written in C++, would you suggest that it is proprietary?
I suspect not. But the same story is true of a comparison between g++ and one of
the nice commercial environments.
Hope this clears a few things up.
- thomas beale
