From: Chad Perrin Date: 2007-09-14T03:18:34+09:00 Subject: Re: IronRuby On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 04:57:50PM +0900, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote: > Bill Kelly wrote: > >So long as they are using a genuine open source license--which > >it sounds like they are--I'm hard pressed to imagine any > >catastrophic consequences from their efforts? > > I'd love some clarification on that end of things. The core classes are > really public and you can contribute to them. The runtime (DLR plus some > IronRuby internals) seem to be public but you can't contribute to it. > And then of course Microsoft's CLR impl is not open source. I respect > what John's trying to do opening up this project, but I worry about an > OSS project built on progressively more closed foundations. I don't know that "progressively more" really fits here -- but the foundations are certainly closed (as John pointed out). That's what you get when you develop for MS Windows. There are no two ways about that. Unfortunately, people still need to develop for MS Windows from time to time -- and doing so can actually provide some opportunity for people to grow to appreciate things that are available other than on MS Windows, particularly with cross-platform applications, so overall I think IronRuby might serve to provide some impetus for some people to get out of that rut. On a similar note: The idea of open source software being built on closed foundations sounds a lot like what has been going on with open source development in Java for several years. Despite this, I don't really see people complaining about the closed foundations represented by the Java VM. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] Leon Festinger: "A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point."