ilisp-mode and HyperSpec search
David Bakhash
(point) in the CLHS and then present it to you using w3?
is it an add-on? I'd love to have it (otherwise, I'll probably write it).
dave
Samir Barjoud
Not ilisp's, but Naggum's:
ftp://ftp.naggum.no/emacs/hyperspec.el
--
Samir Barjoud
sa...@mindspring.com
David Bakhash
thanks,
dave
Pierre R. Mai
> this is really excellent.
Indeed it is. But beware: This is addictive! Once you've gotton
used to the idea of getting excellent and accurate documentation at
the touch of a button, you'll never want to be without it...
This brings me to something I've been pondering about: As part of
(re-)writing documentation for MaiSQL (and several other packages),
I've started on some work of customizing DocBook to make it more
suitable for (Common) Lisp (i.e. stripping out useless C/Unix centric
stuff (synopsis-related) and introducing instead things of use to Lisp
developers), as well as some work on Norman Walsh' excellent DocBook
DSSSL StyleSheets, which produce nice HTML and printed output from the
DocBook source.
It might be useful to try to "standardize" some form of DocBook
customization, and write a couple of simple tools/framework stuff,
that would allow documentation written using this to be easily plugged
into Emacs for lookup (i.e. since all symbols will be marked up in the
documentation stuff anyway, it should be simple to produce the
symbol->URL mapping needed for something like Erik's hyperspec.el
while generating the HTML output).
If combined with some standardized defsystem stuff, this would make
for easily "pluggable" packages...
Anyone interested in this kind of stuff? (Beware: nothing of the
stuff imagined here is anywhere near alpha-stage, even design-wise,
and I probably won't have time to do something about it in the next
1-3 months. Just interested in opinions at the moment...)
Regs, Pierre.
--
Pierre Mai <pm...@acm.org> PGP and GPG keys at your nearest Keyserver
"One smaller motivation which, in part, stems from altruism is Microsoft-
bashing." [Microsoft memo, see http://www.opensource.org/halloween1.html]
T. Kurt Bond
[...]
> I've started on some work of customizing DocBook to make it more
> suitable for (Common) Lisp (i.e. stripping out useless C/Unix centric
> stuff (synopsis-related) and introducing instead things of use to Lisp
> developers), as well as some work on Norman Walsh' excellent DocBook
> DSSSL StyleSheets, which produce nice HTML and printed output from the
> DocBook source.
[...]
> Anyone interested in this kind of stuff?
[...]
I'd certainly be interested in seeing this.
--
T. Kurt Bond, t...@access.mountain.net
Marco Antoniotti
Samir Barjoud <sa...@mindspring.com> writes:
> David Bakhash <ca...@bu.edu> writes:
>
> > Does ilisp have a mechanism to lookup the documentation of the function at
> > (point) in the CLHS and then present it to you using w3?
> >
> > is it an add-on? I'd love to have it (otherwise, I'll probably write it).
> >
>
> Not ilisp's, but Naggum's:
>
> ftp://ftp.naggum.no/emacs/hyperspec.el
>
I am considering to distribute it as a 'contrib' to ILISP.
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti ===========================================
PARADES, Via San Pantaleo 66, I-00186 Rome, ITALY
tel. +39 - 06 68 10 03 17, fax. +39 - 06 68 80 79 26
http://www.parades.rm.cnr.it/~marcoxa
William Deakin
> I am considering to distribute it as a 'contrib' to ILISP.
That is a most excellent idea.
Cheers,
:-) will
Marco Antoniotti
Hi,
I send this message here even if it'd be more approrpiate on the ILISP
mailing list. (il...@cons.org - majordomo administered)
I have never used hyperspec.el and now I hear that there are two
versions of it floating around.
I'd like feedback on which people deem the best before I go ahead and
includ it in 5.9.
Thanks
Daniel Barlow
> I have never used hyperspec.el and now I hear that there are two
> versions of it floating around.
Two versions or two completely different implementations? I wrote my
own hyperspec.el once (http://www.telent.net/lisp/hyperspec.el) purely
because I couldn't find Erik's at the time. The basic difference in
normal use, I think, is that when looking up a symbol with multiple
references (eg LAMBDA), Erik's implementation visits each page in turn so
that the user can use netscape's Forward/Back buttons to switch
between them, whereas mine goes to the HyperSpec/Body/any_lambda.html
page which says 'Please select which reference to LAMBDA you intended'
His will also work with a remotely-hosted hyperspec, whereas mine
requires that you download it first.
> I'd like feedback on which people deem the best before I go ahead and
> includ it in 5.9.
hyperspec-a-la-dan has three users that I know of. I won't weep if
ilisp obsoletes it.
-dan
Fred Gilham
Daniel Barlow writes:
>Two versions or two completely different implementations?
It looks like there are THREE completely different interpretations.
(Talk about great minds working along the same lines....) The one I
use is by Stephen Carney (car...@gvc.dec.com as of July 8 1997).
--
Fred Gilham gil...@csl.sri.com
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and
lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke
is easy, and my burden is light." --Jesus of Nazareth
Steve Carney
in <u7emh1k...@snapdragon.csl.sri.com>:
>Daniel Barlow writes:
>>Two versions or two completely different implementations?
>It looks like there are THREE completely different interpretations.
>(Talk about great minds working along the same lines....) The one I
>use is by Stephen Carney (car...@gvc.dec.com as of July 8 1997).
My HyperSpec hack is at
<http://www.scubadoo.com/carney/emacs/index.html> under "Miscellaneous",
and my email is now <Steve....@altavista.com>. This implementation
is unrelated to the others AFAIK.
Back around Jul-1997, I posted the sources to gnu.emacs.sources, and RMS
responded. Although the HyperSpec was interesting/neat, he didn't
welcome my posting of a HyperSpec interface on that newsgroup, because
the HyperSpec itself couldn't be incorporated into FSF
sources/control/licensing/whatever. So, further posts for yet another
HyperSpec interface might be best kept off of gnu.emacs.sources (unless
something has changed).
Steve
Kent M Pitman
> Although the HyperSpec was interesting/neat, he didn't
> welcome my posting of a HyperSpec interface on that newsgroup, because
> the HyperSpec itself couldn't be incorporated into FSF
> sources/control/licensing/whatever. So, further posts for yet another
> HyperSpec interface might be best kept off of gnu.emacs.sources (unless
> something has changed).
Yes, he had a hissy fit over the fact that somewhere in the world
there was a content creator that did not, upon creation of content,
hand over to Stallman all rights to do whatever they wanted to the
Hyperspec. Well, the HyperSpec wouldn't have been created at all
if that had been a necessary condition of its creation, so he got a
local optimum. I had a long conversation about this by phone in which
he told me he was upset that the spec wasn't "free". I explained to
him that it was "free", but not "free" in the meaning he wanted to
assign to that word--more in the sense that the word has traditionally
been assigned: without cost. Yes, CLHS still has restrictions. But
that doesn't mean the dictionary word "free" does not apply, nor do I
accept Stallman as a superior authority on the meaning of the word "free".
My impression of Stallman's position is that he wants to reassign the
meaning of that word to be something else, but *I* think he should get
another word besides free for what he wants. I further feel like (and
it's just my personal impression) he wants everyone to have full
rights to content EXCEPT the content creator. Because when it comes
to a test of wills over how to use what is created, he always wants to
use content in ways the author didn't intend. And I don't like that
not because I don't like to see him do interesting things, but because
I fear that the kind of world he lives in will provide no incentive
for the creation of content. It means one can never establish a mark
of quality on something. It's the same world that would have color
versions of Casa Blanca at the theaters, and edited for TV versions of
Eyes Wide Shut. Right now, anyone who wants to can create content
that is free for anyone to modify, but I don't think it's reasonable
to assert that all people should have to do that.
The specific restrictions on modification of the HyperSpec were
created to assure quality control (since the Harlequin name is
affixed) and to assure "advertising effect" (since the HyperSpec cost
$$ to produce, and Harlequin had to recover the cost somehow; the
other way to do so would have been to package it into a specific
product, but I argued [eventually successfully] that the advertising
value, even if it could not be accounted for specifically because the
document was moving freely around, would more than pay for itself).
Making it "Stallman-Free" (sorry, not "free of Stallman" but "free
according to Stallman") would have made it harder for me to convince
anyone of this claim, and probably would have meant there was no
cost-free way to get access.
Stallman grumbled that he would just go off and write his own
processor to produce the equivalent result. To my knowledge, he
didn't ever do that. Franz essentially did the effort over again
themselves, and it's part of their product--not "free", which is
completely understandable: They had to pay money to get it done, and
they can't afford to just give away that investment to potential
competitors any more than Harlequin could. It's tough being a
commercial entity and having to care about these issues, but these
issues can make the difference between a company making money and not.
Franz, Harlequin, and others donated lots of dollars toward making
sure the ANSI standard happened at all. They also have cost-free
variants of their commercial software available--again under license
restrictions. At any given time, there is a limit, and reasonably so,
to how much they can do for the community without charging. It might
be great for Stallman if they made all their software open, too, but
it would not necessarily be great for Lisp because two important
commercial sources of Lisp would be out of business.
As to whether he can include the HyperSpec in FSF sources, I'm not at
Harlequin so cannot speak for them (if I ever could), but my
*impression* casually looking at the license (which I admit to having
partly myself originally drafted) is that he certainly can as long as
he doesn't modify the sources or charge money or various other
specific things specifically enumerated in the license. His problem is not
with his inability to incorporate it, it's with his inability to
CHANGE it during said incorporation. It's certainly possible for him
to want to deny his users access to the HyperSpec based on this lack
of flexibility, but I think he does his users a disservice in exercising
that possibility, since this facility would be of use to some of them.
We each create our contributions to the world in different ways. I
can understand and respect Stallman's vision for what he wants to do
with his time and energy, but it is only one possible vision and I can
and do have respect for other people's views of how they are trying to
make the world better, too. What really bugs me about Stallman's view
is that in the process of what he does good, he and his movement seem to
breed a set of people who are taught to have disdain for others who are
doing nothing more than to try to improve the world in a different way
than he is. I think that kind of closed-mindedness that hurts his
cause a great deal. It's more important that people think hard about
the social consequences of their actions and strive every day to do well
by the world than that we all agree on a specific set of social patterns
that are Always Good and another set that are Always Bad. Almost by
definition, I think, dogma is going to lose. And in my opinion,
Stallman's approach, by refusing to admit the possibility that certain
specific other approaches have some legitimacy, tends toward dogma.
He's got some good ideas bound up in there, but they're just some of the
many options people should consider in trying to decide how best they can
contribute to the world.
To know for sure whether or not you can include the HyperSpec in whatever FSF
or anyone else distributes, see
http://www.harlequin.com/education/books/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/About-HyperSpec.html#Legal
and contact Harlequin if there's something you're not clear on.
Craig Brozefsky
> My impression of Stallman's position is that he wants to reassign the
> meaning of that word to be something else, but *I* think he should get
> another word besides free for what he wants.
It seems that you are intent on denying the meaning that "free" has
had for a very long time, insisting that it means "no cost". As if
the hegemony of political-economy should include not only our
understanding of the creative process thru the blind assumption of the
model of economic incentive as fact, but also our language.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Free \Free\ (fr[=e]), a. [Compar. {Freer} (-[~e]r); superl.
{Freest} (-[e^]st).] [OE. fre, freo, AS. fre['o], fr[=i];
akin to D. vrij, OS. & OHG. fr[=i], G. frei, Icel. fr[=i],
Sw. & Dan. fri, Goth. freis, and also to Skr. prija beloved,
dear, fr. pr[=i] to love, Goth. frij[=o]n. Cf. {Affray},
{Belfry}, {Friday}, {Friend}, {Frith} inclosure.]
1. Exempt from subjection to the will of others; not under
restraint, control, or compulsion; able to follow one's
own impulses, desires, or inclinations; determining one's
own course of action; not dependent; at liberty.
That which has the power, or not the power, to
operate, is that alone which is or is not free.
--Locke.
Yes, "free" also means, no cost, no money need be paid. But I don't
think that Richard is re-assigning the word to mean something new, it
has always meant liberty, independent action. I think it disingenuous
to claim that his use of the word "free" in this well-established
manner is an attempt to "re-assign" the meaning of a common word. We
all know what a Free Man is afterall.
There is a line of argument that says that the restrictions which the
GPL place on distribution of derivative works disqualified it from
being considered Free, but my impression is that that is hardly the
direction which you were coming from. There are counter-arguments,
and counter-counter arguments to this that I don't really want to
cover, and anyone can look these up in DejaNews on gnu.misc.discuss
I've attached the definition of the word "free" as obtained from
various Free sources, to make clear that "no cost" is hardly the only,
or even dominant understanding of the word. I still like the
typographical convention of capitalizing it when refering to the
higher notion of liberty, and so I try to be consistent in that.
> Franz, Harlequin, and others donated lots of dollars toward making
> sure the ANSI standard happened at all. They also have cost-free
> variants of their commercial software available--again under license
> restrictions. At any given time, there is a limit, and reasonably so,
> to how much they can do for the community without charging. It might
> be great for Stallman if they made all their software open, too, but
> it would not necessarily be great for Lisp because two important
> commercial sources of Lisp would be out of business.
True, one can't really expect those who base their business on
proprietary software to be able to make a transition to other models.
It's especially true when they are already on shaky ground.
But as we draw closer to a single commercial vendor for the Language,
with the purchase of Harlequin by a company not really in the software
development business, I really wonder what good the vendors have
done. What is their legacy? How much work, time, intellect, blood,
and sweat are now tied up in dead companies? Who is going to use a
gigantic language with a single viable vendor who charges royalties
for deployment?
Am I being to bleak?
I really see no future in the commercial vendors. If Lisp is going to
have any real longevity it is going to be in the Free variants. Franz
might hold out for a decade, maybe more, but I don't see more vendors
joining the ranks of lively Lisp implementors anytime soon, and a
single vendor language is a dead language. But I am not going to turn
around and say that Free Software will "save" lisp. The Free
implementations have their own set of problems that I don't see any
easy solutions for either.
Most importantly, thanx for the HyperSpec Kent.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Free \Free\ (fr[=e]), a. [Compar. {Freer} (-[~e]r); superl.
{Freest} (-[e^]st).] [OE. fre, freo, AS. fre['o], fr[=i];
akin to D. vrij, OS. & OHG. fr[=i], G. frei, Icel. fr[=i],
Sw. & Dan. fri, Goth. freis, and also to Skr. prija beloved,
dear, fr. pr[=i] to love, Goth. frij[=o]n. Cf. {Affray},
{Belfry}, {Friday}, {Friend}, {Frith} inclosure.]
1. Exempt from subjection to the will of others; not under
restraint, control, or compulsion; able to follow one's
own impulses, desires, or inclinations; determining one's
own course of action; not dependent; at liberty.
That which has the power, or not the power, to
operate, is that alone which is or is not free.
--Locke.
2. Not under an arbitrary or despotic government; subject
only to fixed laws regularly and fairly administered, and
defended by them from encroachments upon natural or
acquired rights; enjoying political liberty.
3. Liberated, by arriving at a certain age, from the control
of parents, guardian, or master.
4. Not confined or imprisoned; released from arrest;
liberated; at liberty to go.
Set an unhappy prisoner free. --Prior.
5. Not subjected to the laws of physical necessity; capable
of voluntary activity; endowed with moral liberty; -- said
of the will.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love.
--Milton.
6. Clear of offense or crime; guiltless; innocent.
My hands are guilty, but my heart is free. --Dryden.
7. Unconstrained by timidity or distrust; unreserved;
ingenuous; frank; familiar; communicative.
He was free only with a few. --Milward.
8. Unrestrained; immoderate; lavish; licentious; -- used in a
bad sense.
The critics have been very free in their censures.
--Felton.
A man may live a free life as to wine or women.
--Shelley.
9. Not close or parsimonious; liberal; open-handed; lavish;
as, free with his money.
10. Exempt; clear; released; liberated; not encumbered or
troubled with; as, free from pain; free from a burden; --
followed by from, or, rarely, by of.
Princes declaring themselves free from the
obligations of their treaties. --Bp. Burnet.
11. Characteristic of one acting without restraint; charming;
easy.
12. Ready; eager; acting without spurring or whipping;
spirited; as, a free horse.
13. Invested with a particular freedom or franchise; enjoying
certain immunities or privileges; admitted to special
rights; -- followed by of.
He therefore makes all birds, of every sect, Free
of his farm. --Dryden.
14. Thrown open, or made accessible, to all; to be enjoyed
without limitations; unrestricted; not obstructed,
engrossed, or appropriated; open; -- said of a thing to
be possessed or enjoyed; as, a free school.
Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free For
me as for you? --Shak.
15. Not gained by importunity or purchase; gratuitous;
spontaneous; as, free admission; a free gift.
16. Not arbitrary or despotic; assuring liberty; defending
individual rights against encroachment by any person or
class; instituted by a free people; -- said of a
government, institutions, etc.
17. (O. Eng. Law) Certain or honorable; the opposite of base;
as, free service; free socage. --Burrill.
18. (Law) Privileged or individual; the opposite of common;
as, a free fishery; a free warren. --Burrill.
19. Not united or combined with anything else; separated;
dissevered; unattached; at liberty to escape; as, free
carbonic acid gas; free cells.
{Free agency}, the capacity or power of choosing or acting
freely, or without necessity or constraint upon the will.
{Free bench} (Eng. Law), a widow's right in the copyhold
lands of her husband, corresponding to dower in freeholds.
{Free board} (Naut.), a vessel's side between water line and
gunwale.
{Free bond} (Chem.), an unsaturated or unemployed unit, or
bond, of affinity or valence, of an atom or radical.
{Free-borough men} (O.Eng. Law). See {Friborg}.
{Free chapel} (Eccles.), a chapel not subject to the
jurisdiction of the ordinary, having been founded by the
king or by a subject specially authorized. [Eng.]
--Bouvier.
{Free charge} (Elec.), a charge of electricity in the free or
statical condition; free electricity.
{Free church}.
(a) A church whose sittings are for all and without
charge.
(b) An ecclesiastical body that left the Church of
Scotland, in 1843, to be free from control by the
government in spiritual matters.
{Free city}, or {Free town}, a city or town independent in
its government and franchises, as formerly those of the
Hanseatic league.
{Free cost}, freedom from charges or expenses. --South.
{Free and easy}, unconventional; unrestrained; regardless of
formalities. [Colloq.] ``Sal and her free and easy ways.''
--W. Black.
{Free goods}, goods admitted into a country free of duty.
{Free labor}, the labor of freemen, as distinguished from
that of slaves.
{Free port}. (Com.)
(a) A port where goods may be received and shipped free
of custom duty.
(b) A port where goods of all kinds are received from
ships of all nations at equal rates of duty.
{Free public house}, in England, a tavern not belonging to a
brewer, so that the landlord is free to brew his own beer
or purchase where he chooses. --Simmonds.
{Free school}.
(a) A school to which pupils are admitted without
discrimination and on an equal footing.
(b) A school supported by general taxation, by
endowmants, etc., where pupils pay nothing for
tuition; a public school.
{Free services} (O.Eng. Law), such feudal services as were
not unbecoming the character of a soldier or a freemen to
perform; as, to serve under his lord in war, to pay a sum
of money, etc. --Burrill.
{Free ships}, ships of neutral nations, which in time of war
are free from capture even though carrying enemy's goods.
{Free socage} (O.Eng. Law), a feudal tenure held by certain
services which, though honorable, were not military.
--Abbott.
{Free States}, those of the United States before the Civil
War, in which slavery had ceased to exist, or had never
existed.
{Free stuff} (Carp.), timber free from knots; clear stuff.
{Free thought}, that which is thought independently of the
authority of others.
{Free trade}, commerce unrestricted by duties or tariff
regulations.
{Free trader}, one who believes in free trade.
{To make free with}, to take liberties with; to help one's
self to. [Colloq.]
{To sail free} (Naut.), to sail with the yards not braced in
as sharp as when sailing closehauled, or close to the
wind.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Free \Free\, adv.
1. Freely; willingly. [Obs.]
I as free forgive you As I would be forgiven.
--Shak.
2. Without charge; as, children admitted free.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Free \Free\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Freed}; p. pr. & vb. n.
{Freeing}.] [OE. freen, freoien, AS. fre['o]gan. See {Free},
a.]
1. To make free; to set at liberty; to rid of that which
confines, limits, embarrasses, oppresses, etc.; to
release; to disengage; to clear; -- followed by from, and
sometimes by off; as, to free a captive or a slave; to be
freed of these inconveniences. --Clarendon.
Our land is from the rage of tigers freed. --Dryden.
Arise, . . . free thy people from their yoke.
--Milton.
2. To remove, as something that confines or bars; to relieve
from the constraint of.
This master key Frees every lock, and leads us to
his person. --Dryden.
3. To frank. [Obs.] --Johnson.
From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]:
free
adj 1: able to act at will; not hampered; not under compulsion or
restraint; "free enterprise"; "a free port"; "a free
country"; "I have an hour free"; "free will"; "free of
racism"; "feel free to stay as long as you wish" [ant:
{unfree}]
2: (chemistry and physics) unconstrained or not chemically
bound in a molecule or not fixed and capable of relatively
unrestricted motion; "free expansion"; "free oxygen"; "a
free electron" [ant: {bound}]
3: costing nothing; "complimentary tickets" [syn: {complimentary},
{costless}, {gratis(p)}, {gratuitous}]
4: not occupied or in use; "a free locker"
5: done by hand without mechanical aids or devices; "a freehand
drawing" [syn: {freehand}, {freehanded}]
6: affording free passage or view; "a clear view"; "a clear
path to victory"; "a free lane" [syn: {clear}, {open}]
7: of your own accord; "a free act of the will"; "free choice"
8: not fixed in position; "the detached shutter fell on him";
"he pulled his arm free and ran" [syn: {detached}]
9: not held in servitude; "after the Civil War he was a free
man" [ant: {slave(a)}]
10: not taken up by scheduled activities; "a free hour between
classes"; "spare time on my hands" [syn: {spare}]
11: not literal; "a loose interpretation of what she had been
told"; "a free translation of the poem" [syn: {loose}, {liberal}]
12: not bound by shackles and chains [syn: {unchained}, {unfettered},
{unshackled}, {untied}]
n : people who are free; "the home of the free and the brave"
[syn: {free people}]
adv : without restraint; "cows in India are running loose" [syn: {loose}]
v 1: grant freedom to; free from confinement [syn: {liberate}, {release},
{unloose}, {loose}] [ant: {confine}]
2: relieve from; "Rid the the house of pests" [syn: {rid}, {disembarrass}]
3: remove or force out from a position; "The dentist dislodged
the piece of food that had been stuck under my gums"; "He
finally could free the legs of the earthquake victim who
was buried in the rubble" [syn: {dislodge}] [ant: {lodge}]
4: grant relief or an exemption from a rule or requirement to;
"She exempted me from the exam" [syn: {exempt}, {relieve}]
[ant: {enforce}]
5: make available or free for sale or publication [syn: {release}]
6: free from obligations or duties [syn: {discharge}]
7: free or remove obstruction from [syn: {disengage}] [ant: {obstruct}]
8: let off the hook [syn: {absolve}, {justify}] [ant: {blame}]
9: part with [syn: {release}, {relinquish}, {give up}]
10: make available, as of assets; or free for sale or
publication [syn: {unblock}, {unfreeze}, {release}] [ant:
{freeze}, {freeze}]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) [foldoc]:
free
See {free software}, {free variable}.
--
Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com>
Free Scheme/Lisp Software http://www.red-bean.com/~craig
I say woe unto those who are wise in their own eyes, and yet
imprudent in 'dem outside -Sizzla
Craig Brozefsky
> On 19 Aug 1999 19:55:01 -0500, Craig Brozefsky wrote:
>
> >It seems that you are intent on denying the meaning that "free" has
> >had for a very long time, insisting that it means "no cost". As if
> >the hegemony of political-economy should include not only our
> >understanding of the creative process thru the blind assumption of the
> >model of economic incentive as fact, but also our language.
>
> No, he's denying that "free" makes much sense when applied in that sense
> to inanimate objects.
Well that's why I included the whole dang definition; we have Free
School for instance, Free Country, Free Church, Free City, Free ships,
and Free Thought, and of course, Free Speech. We have both things,
and acts being prefixed with "Free". Free Software covers both the
thing, as well as the act, or mode of production, so it straddles the
two.
I think that Free Software can indeed be more confusing than Free Man
or Free Country, because your average computer user prolly does not
think of Man or country as being objects of commerce the "cost free"
meaning does not ever come into play. Most users see the software
industry and all the people supposedly getting rich off of it, and the
only software they know is that which they buy or is bundled 'free'
(ahem, microsoft, ahem) with their machine. And since they prolly do
not understand the literary aspects of software development, the idea
of Free, in terms of liberated, software never enters their mind,
while the "cost free" meaning is the most prevelant one they are
exposed to.
But once this literary aspect of software is explained, and that usage
of Free propogated (as it is now in all the articles on Linux and
Apache and Perl) both meanings become apparent to the user.
William Tanksley
>> My impression of Stallman's position is that he wants to reassign the
>> meaning of that word to be something else, but *I* think he should get
>> another word besides free for what he wants.
>It seems that you are intent on denying the meaning that "free" has
>had for a very long time, insisting that it means "no cost". As if
>the hegemony of political-economy should include not only our
>understanding of the creative process thru the blind assumption of the
>model of economic incentive as fact, but also our language.
No, he's denying that "free" makes much sense when applied in that sense
to inanimate objects.
>Yes, "free" also means, no cost, no money need be paid. But I don't
>think that Richard is re-assigning the word to mean something new, it
>has always meant liberty, independent action. I think it disingenuous
>to claim that his use of the word "free" in this well-established
>manner is an attempt to "re-assign" the meaning of a common word. We
>all know what a Free Man is afterall.
Right -- it's a man that anyone can copy so long as they distribute the
source.
I should add that I think Free Software is just about the most harmless
redefinition I've heard of. It works okay, so long as we don't
accidentally let people get confused with its obvious (but wrong) meaning
as in costless software.
>There is a line of argument that says that the restrictions which the
>GPL place on distribution of derivative works disqualified it from
>being considered Free, but my impression is that that is hardly the
>direction which you were coming from. There are counter-arguments,
>and counter-counter arguments to this that I don't really want to
>cover, and anyone can look these up in DejaNews on gnu.misc.discuss
Good idea. I've made that argument, but I'm not against the GPL -- I
think the GPL is about pragamtism in the pursuit of Free Software, and I
don't have anything against pragamtism so long as the people using it are
honest.
>I've attached the definition of the word "free" as obtained from
>various Free sources, to make clear that "no cost" is hardly the only,
>or even dominant understanding of the word. I still like the
>typographical convention of capitalizing it when refering to the
>higher notion of liberty, and so I try to be consistent in that.
That's very good, and will generally cause people who were about to take
it wrong to question whether they really understood.
>I really see no future in the commercial vendors. If Lisp is going to
>have any real longevity it is going to be in the Free variants. Franz
>might hold out for a decade, maybe more, but I don't see more vendors
>joining the ranks of lively Lisp implementors anytime soon, and a
>single vendor language is a dead language. But I am not going to turn
>around and say that Free Software will "save" lisp. The Free
>implementations have their own set of problems that I don't see any
>easy solutions for either.
Agreed on all points. Sigh.
>Most importantly, thanx for the HyperSpec Kent.
Again agreed. And thanks for making it free (lower case common meaning),
even if you couldn't also make it Free.
>Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com>
--
-William "Billy" Tanksley
Marco Antoniotti
Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
...
> if that had been a necessary condition of its creation, so he got a
> local optimum. I had a long conversation about this by phone in which
> he told me he was upset that the spec wasn't "free". I explained to
> him that it was "free", but not "free" in the meaning he wanted to
> assign to that word--more in the sense that the word has traditionally
> been assigned: without cost.
Ahem! Just to be exceedingly annoying :) The controversy about "free"
is inherent in the evolution of the semantics of the term withn the
English language. In Italian (and many other languages) there would
be no confusion. (not (equal "Gratis" "Libero")). :)
> My impression of Stallman's position is that he wants to reassign the
> meaning of that word to be something else, but *I* think he should get
> another word besides free for what he wants.
I disagree. "The (semantic) right thing" would be to stop to use
"free" for "without cost".
English is a "worst is better" language. :)
Cheers
Marco Antoniotti
Apologies for the second noisy posting.
Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
> of quality on something. It's the same world that would have color
> versions of Casa Blanca at the theaters, and edited for TV versions of
> Eyes Wide Shut.
You have "edited for the US" "Eyes Wide Shut".
I.e. things get murky when lawyers get in the middle. I bet Kubrick
had "final cut" privileges, but he died before distribution....
Erik Naggum
| No, he's denying that "free" makes much sense when applied in that sense
| to inanimate objects.
* Craig Brozefsky
| Well that's why I included the whole dang definition; we have Free School
| for instance, Free Country, Free Church, Free City, Free ships, and Free
| Thought, and of course, Free Speech. We have both things, and acts being
| prefixed with "Free". Free Software covers both the thing, as well as
| the act, or mode of production, so it straddles the two.
|
| I think that Free Software can indeed be more confusing than Free Man or
| Free Country, because your average computer user prolly does not think of
| Man or country as being objects of commerce the "cost free" meaning does
| not ever come into play.
I think it's because in all of the above instances of "Free" you actually
refer to _people_ who are free, and that's a much harder leap for Free
Software, which is about programmers being freed of the need to ask the
author for permission to use their works in any way they like.
(now, since Free Software proponents tend to cast everyone who does not
agree with their full philosophy as enemies, let me say that I joined the
Free Software movement for the wrong reason many years ago: I thought it
was about educating people, not about producing "alternative" software.
I have since found other ways that are more effective in educating people
than relinquishing the author's rights to his works and removing his say
in its use. I also think there are better ways to beat the "hoarders",
if that is a worthy goal at all.)
#:Erik
--
(defun pringles (chips)
(loop (pop chips)))
Rainer Joswig
> I really see no future in the commercial vendors.
I disagree.
> If Lisp is going to
> have any real longevity it is going to be in the Free variants.
Sorry, I don't want to be rude - so I better say nothing.
> Franz
> might hold out for a decade, maybe more, but I don't see more vendors
> joining the ranks of lively Lisp implementors anytime soon, and a
> single vendor language is a dead language.
Last time I looked people at Harlequin, Digitool, Symbolics, ...
etc. were selling and maintaining their Lisps.
Duane Rettig
> In article <87ogg38...@duomo.pukka.org>, Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> wrote:
>
> > I really see no future in the commercial vendors.
>
> I disagree.
I also disagree; I see a bright future for us all; there are a lot
of people using lisp. Those who don't see it that way, don't see it.
Harlequin's future (in their new identity) re lisp is in their own
hands, as well as other commercial vendors, _and_ there is plenty of
room and use for free versions as well.
> > If Lisp is going to
> > have any real longevity it is going to be in the Free variants.
>
> Sorry, I don't want to be rude - so I better say nothing.
Heh, heh. I find it amusing to see the term "real longevity" here, as
being applied to the second oldest language in existence.
But I think the emphasis in the original statement was on the "Free",
rather than the "longevity", and it is true that the free/open software
is very popular at this time, so to those involved it may seem as though
it might take over all software, not just Lisp. But I am sure that it will
never take over 100%, because there will always be many customers of
software that would rather not have to deal with their language or their
tools in detail, but would rather treat it as a black box, and as long as
they get a good value for their money in support of their product, they
would rather turn their attention to and put their effort into their
application which will make them some money.
> > Franz
> > might hold out for a decade, maybe more, but I don't see more vendors
> > joining the ranks of lively Lisp implementors anytime soon, and a
> > single vendor language is a dead language.
>
> Last time I looked people at Harlequin, Digitool, Symbolics, ...
> etc. were selling and maintaining their Lisps.
Yes, but a decade from now, the nay-sayers will give us another ten
years, telling us how dead lisp is and how it won't last ...
--
Duane Rettig Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/ (www)
1995 University Ave Suite 275 Berkeley, CA 94704
Phone: (510) 548-3600; FAX: (510) 548-8253 du...@Franz.COM (internet)
Larry Hunter
Back around Jul-1997, I posted the sources to gnu.emacs.sources, and RMS
my posting of a HyperSpec interface on that newsgroup, because the
HyperSpec itself couldn't be incorporated into FSF
sources/control/licensing/whatever. So, further posts for yet another
HyperSpec interface might be best kept off of gnu.emacs.sources (unless
something has changed).
Well, I recently posted a hyperspec-like browser for Harlequin's online
CLIM documentation on gnu.emacs.sources, and I didn't hear anything from
RMS. Perhaps he's mellowed on this topic???
Larry
--
Lawrence Hunter, Ph.D. Chief, Molecular Statistics and Bioinformatics
National Cancer Institute email: lhu...@nih.gov
Federal Building, Room 3C06 phone: +1 (301) 402-0389
7550 Wisconsin Ave. fax: +1 (301) 480-0223
Bethesda, MD 20892 USA
Craig Brozefsky
> Heh, heh. I find it amusing to see the term "real longevity" here, as
> being applied to the second oldest language in existence.
Yah, I must admit, I think it's the curse of being a bit on the young
side. But I was also talking about commercial vendors, not the
language itself. Franz is 16, Harlequin is 14, Digitool is 13, so
while these are respectable ages, they don't really compare to the
"real longevity" of Lisp, 40 some years. So perhaps the phrase is not
as absurd sounding when applied to the commercial vendors of
proprietary Lisps, as I originally intended.
> But I think the emphasis in the original statement was on the "Free",
> rather than the "longevity", and it is true that the free/open software
> is very popular at this time, so to those involved it may seem as though
> it might take over all software, not just Lisp.
I don't think it will take over everything, but it's where I feel the
most long term stability is for building my own software. It's immune
to vendors going bankrupt, or dropping product lines, or making broken
changes to their products. So as a programmer, the problems Free
Software face seem surmountable, I can contribute to their maintenance
and development with my own work, and can never have the code taken
away from me. I can also contribute financially, directly to the
people responsible for the maintenance of the product, rather than
having to go thru a corporation. On the other side, the problems
inherent in commercial enterprise are not something I can directly
address, except maybe in my capacity as a "consumer" but that is
ultimately an empty and meaningless power. I'll admit that this may
be an artifact of my present perspective as a software developer
working with mostly Free Software tools.
> But I am sure that it will never take over 100%, because there will
> always be many customers of software that would rather not have to
> deal with their language or their tools in detail, but would rather
> treat it as a black box, and as long as they get a good value for
> their money in support of their product, they would rather turn
> their attention to and put their effort into their application which
> will make them some money.
Free Software does not preclude this, ask Cygnus for instance. I'm
sure you've heard that argument a thousand times before, but it
appears that you still think that Free Software cannot provide for
those types of customers. Do you have time to tell us why you feel
that way, as I'd be interested in hearing the opinion of someone
working on just such a "black box" Lisp implementation. Perhaps there
are issues I am unable to see.
> > Last time I looked people at Harlequin, Digitool, Symbolics, ...
> > etc. were selling and maintaining their Lisps.
Digitool supports a single platform (very well tho), Harlequin went
bankrupt and was bought by a company that doesn't do software
development, and Symbolics bobs up and down like a drowning rat. I'm
not expecting any more advancements from Harlequin since they
relinquished a large part of their Lisp staff, and I am not even sure
Symbolics has a staff anymore. I'd be ecstatic if either of those two
proved me wrong.
So who besides Digitool and Franz have the resources to move Lisp
forward and help it keep up with the changes in the computing
environment? How many developers of Lisp implmenetations do these
organizations presently support? If there is noone else, can we rely
on those two organizations? Do you guys think that is a valid
question? I'm genuinely interested in those answers.
> Yes, but a decade from now, the nay-sayers will give us another ten
> years, telling us how dead lisp is and how it won't last ...
I'm not nay-saying Lisp tho. The difference is that I don't think
it's "dewmed". This does not mean that I think the current situation
is one that can carry it along the furthest. I think that directing
funds towards the maintenance and development of Free implementations
is the most fruitful route, but I don't begrudge Franz or Digitool or
others their income.
Raymond Toy
Craig> Duane Rettig <du...@franz.com> writes:
>> Heh, heh. I find it amusing to see the term "real longevity" here, as
>> being applied to the second oldest language in existence.
Craig> side. But I was also talking about commercial vendors, not the
Craig> language itself. Franz is 16, Harlequin is 14, Digitool is 13, so
Craig> while these are respectable ages, they don't really compare to the
Craig> "real longevity" of Lisp, 40 some years. So perhaps the phrase is not
Craig> as absurd sounding when applied to the commercial vendors of
Craig> proprietary Lisps, as I originally intended.
How about the oldest language, Fortran? Are there any Fortran
compiler companies older than 16? I remember some PC Fortran
compilers from about 85 or so. I know IBM has been making Fortran
compilers for a long time, but I don't know when the first was was
done.
Despite what some people may think about Fortran, I don't think it's
not going away soon either. I don't even know of any PC Fortran
compiler companies anymore. (Mostly because I don't need one anymore.)
Ray
Duane Rettig
> Duane Rettig <du...@franz.com> writes:
>
> > Heh, heh. I find it amusing to see the term "real longevity" here, as
> > being applied to the second oldest language in existence.
>
> Yah, I must admit, I think it's the curse of being a bit on the young
> side. But I was also talking about commercial vendors, not the
> language itself. Franz is 16, Harlequin is 14, Digitool is 13, so
> while these are respectable ages, they don't really compare to the
> "real longevity" of Lisp, 40 some years. So perhaps the phrase is not
> as absurd sounding when applied to the commercial vendors of
> proprietary Lisps, as I originally intended.
It would probably be interesting if anyone had any data on ages of
comercial or free software vendors, of _any_ product. I don't myself
know, but my gut feel is that an average of 14 years over three
vendors of the same standard product is pretty good.
> > But I think the emphasis in the original statement was on the "Free",
> > rather than the "longevity", and it is true that the free/open software
> > is very popular at this time, so to those involved it may seem as though
> > it might take over all software, not just Lisp.
>
> I don't think it will take over everything, but it's where I feel the
> most long term stability is for building my own software. It's immune
> to vendors going bankrupt, or dropping product lines, or making broken
> changes to their products.
You had me with you until the last phrase. Unless the vendor of the
software has controls in place for accepting software changes, breakage
is inevitable. This is no different in "Free" (i.e. open) products
than in "commercial" products.
> So as a programmer, the problems Free
> Software face seem surmountable, I can contribute to their maintenance
> and development with my own work, and can never have the code taken
> away from me.
I also use open software, and changes I make to my own personal copy
(i.e. the one that can't be taken away) tend to get dropped on the
floor when I update to the next version. Obviously, I have a lot of
choices: I can either hope that the new code works better, or I can
merge (i.e.re-implement) my changes into the new version, or I can
feed back my changes to the vendor (there's that change control
structure I was talking about) or I can refuse to upgrade. More and
more, as my brain gets filled with my own product and issues thereof,
I tend to let "someone else" do the job of maintaining the free/open
software - in other words, I treat it as a black-box.
> I can also contribute financially, directly to the
> people responsible for the maintenance of the product, rather than
> having to go thru a corporation.
Say the word, and I'll give you a bank account number to which you
can contribute directly to me :-)
> On the other side, the problems
> inherent in commercial enterprise are not something I can directly
> address, except maybe in my capacity as a "consumer" but that is
> ultimately an empty and meaningless power. I'll admit that this may
> be an artifact of my present perspective as a software developer
> working with mostly Free Software tools.
You sell yourself short as a consumer. There are times when you have
to walk away from a non-responsive vendor, (be it software or household
commodities or automobiles). But most of the time, there are many
things you can do that might surprise you. Even huge, impersonal
companies are sometimes responsive if you know how to approach them.
> > But I am sure that it will never take over 100%, because there will
> > always be many customers of software that would rather not have to
> > deal with their language or their tools in detail, but would rather
> > treat it as a black box, and as long as they get a good value for
> > their money in support of their product, they would rather turn
> > their attention to and put their effort into their application which
> > will make them some money.
>
> Free Software does not preclude this, ask Cygnus for instance. I'm
> sure you've heard that argument a thousand times before, but it
> appears that you still think that Free Software cannot provide for
> those types of customers.
I don't know why you are making this assumption about my thinking.
Perhaps you are thinking in terms of black-and-white wrt Free/open
vs Proprietary/closed.
> Do you have time to tell us why you feel
> that way, as I'd be interested in hearing the opinion of someone
> working on just such a "black box" Lisp implementation. Perhaps there
> are issues I am unable to see.
Perhaps it is the shades of gray that are missing from your vision.
If you can't see the differences, for example, between Franz and
Microsoft, or between Cygnus and FSF, or the similarities between
Franz and Cygnus, then the grays are missing.
> So who besides Digitool and Franz have the resources to move Lisp
> forward and help it keep up with the changes in the computing
> environment? How many developers of Lisp implmenetations do these
> organizations presently support? If there is noone else, can we rely
> on those two organizations? Do you guys think that is a valid
> question? I'm genuinely interested in those answers.
The excellent thing about lisp is that anyone can develop it, without
the need for source code. It is like your example above, where you
take source code from an open implementation, modify it, and no one
can take it away from you (but of course, as in the example, this has
its limitations). The point is, many developers of Common Lisp are
not necessarily employees of Franz, or of other lisp vendors, or
_even_ of any lisp shop. In that sense, lisp is by nature open.
Craig Brozefsky
> > Yah, I must admit, I think it's the curse of being a bit on the young
> > side. But I was also talking about commercial vendors, not the
> > language itself. Franz is 16, Harlequin is 14, Digitool is 13, so
> > while these are respectable ages, they don't really compare to the
> > "real longevity" of Lisp, 40 some years. So perhaps the phrase is not
> > as absurd sounding when applied to the commercial vendors of
> > proprietary Lisps, as I originally intended.
>
> It would probably be interesting if anyone had any data on ages of
> comercial or free software vendors, of _any_ product. I don't myself
> know, but my gut feel is that an average of 14 years over three
> vendors of the same standard product is pretty good.
Yah, I am coming around into agreement on this. I think that you are
correct below in that my initial assesment was based on a reasoning
which set the Free implementations and the vendors at odds, and so my
personal preference for Free Software asserted itself. And in that
either/or space, that meant that the vendors would appear to be much
worse off than they are. That black/white understanding is not one
that I can support once I become aware of it, but I was not vigilant
enough to catch it creeping into the background of my argument.
I personally want to work primarily with Free Software, as I think
that the mode of production it supports has advantages over
proprietary modes. We've heard all the arguments about this already,
so I'll leave them out here. For this reason the Free implementations
are most important to me. They give me the best place to learn about
Lisp, how to implement and use it, and I can always use them in a
business setting without having to shell out money (both Free and free
is an attractive combination). Combine that sentiment with my
misconception of the community as a split between Free and vendors,
well, you can see what happened.
My original intent was not to set the Free and Proprietary
implementations against one another. That would waste all the effort
that went into making ANSI Common Lisp such a full language, as well
as the flexibility of the language itself. The better path would seem
to be one which uses the advantages of Lisp to support both types of
products. I think getting the Free implementations polished would be
a useful first step. Then we could build tools that everyone can use.
> > I can also contribute financially, directly to the
> > people responsible for the maintenance of the product, rather than
> > having to go thru a corporation.
>
> Say the word, and I'll give you a bank account number to which you
> can contribute directly to me :-)
Well, I'm relocating to Albany next month, right next to you guys, and
one of the things I wanna try and do once I get settled in, is
generate a revenue stream for just this type of work.
> The excellent thing about lisp is that anyone can develop it, without
> the need for source code. It is like your example above, where you
> take source code from an open implementation, modify it, and no one
> can take it away from you (but of course, as in the example, this has
> its limitations). The point is, many developers of Common Lisp are
> not necessarily employees of Franz, or of other lisp vendors, or
> _even_ of any lisp shop. In that sense, lisp is by nature open.
Lisp may be by nature open, but it is not written in a vacuum. If
your extension to Lisp is proprietary, I need to either re-implement
it entirely (and knowing the way Lispers work, there is little chance
I'll agree you did the 'right thing' and be compatible with your
product) or I need to produce a competing product. We're presently
suffering from this, with no universal GUI, or FFI, or DB interface,
or regexp package. Perhaps something like the SRFI mechanism is
called for?
This is the way vendors end up cast against one another, and the Free
lisp comunity. The best licensing for a tool as far as benefit to
the whole of the community is IMO, either public domain or a Free
license that is palatable to the commercial vendors. The details of
the license are dependent upon the work itself, and how it integrates
with existing toolsets. Vendors say they need to reclaim their
investment for these works, and that is how they justify proprietary
licenses, but we can see these types of products being produced by
other language communities with open licenses? How are they managing
that?
Tim Bradshaw
> How about the oldest language, Fortran? Are there any Fortran
> compiler companies older than 16? I remember some PC Fortran
> compilers from about 85 or so. I know IBM has been making Fortran
> compilers for a long time, but I don't know when the first was was
> done.
I think the first fortran compiler was an IBM compiler, so they've
been in the business over 40 years.
What about C compiler vendors?
--tim
Rainer Joswig
> > Last time I looked people at Harlequin, Digitool, Symbolics, ...
> > etc. were selling and maintaining their Lisps.
>
> Yes, but a decade from now, the nay-sayers will give us another ten
> years, telling us how dead lisp is and how it won't last ...
I really don't have time to answer this. ;-) Just to
busy looking into "dead" Lisp code. ;-)
Rainer Joswig
> Harlequin went
> bankrupt
They were not bankrupt.
> and was bought by a company that doesn't do software
> development,
Harlequin will continue Lisp development. I as a (small) customer
have been contacted by them and they have said
that the Lisp business goes on.
Be sure that the have a lot of customers for Liquid CL
and LispWorks - customers with mission critical applications.
> and Symbolics bobs up and down like a drowning rat.
Funny, some (big) companies still buy Open Genera. I'm still
thinking about getting a copy - if it wouldn't run
only under Alpha - sigh.
> So who besides Digitool and Franz have the resources to move Lisp
> forward and help it keep up with the changes in the computing
> environment? How many developers of Lisp implmenetations do these
> organizations presently support? If there is noone else, can we rely
> on those two organizations? Do you guys think that is a valid
> question? I'm genuinely interested in those answers.
Unfortunately this is our only hope. "Free" Lisps are moving
much more slowly and the quality is lightyears behind
the commercial ones - anyway, I don't buy the ideology.
Paolo Amoroso
> I also disagree; I see a bright future for us all; there are a lot
> of people using lisp. Those who don't see it that way, don't see it.
> Harlequin's future (in their new identity) re lisp is in their own
> hands, as well as other commercial vendors, _and_ there is plenty of
> room and use for free versions as well.
I agree. The following vendors have recently shipped new products or
entered the Lisp business (depending on your definition of Lisp, of course
:-)
- Roger Corman, http://www.corman.net/CormanLisp.html
- Erian Concepts, http://www.linux-kheops.com/erian/osm/
I guess there are others. Okay, they are not Fortune 5 companies, but they
decided to invest in Lisp despite doomsday predictions. Shall we start a
"Is Lisp thriving?" thread? :-)
> it might take over all software, not just Lisp. But I am sure that it will
> never take over 100%, because there will always be many customers of
> software that would rather not have to deal with their language or their
> tools in detail, but would rather treat it as a black box, and as long as
Eric Raymond, of Open Source fame, in his latest paper "The Magic Cauldron"
states that there are business models where closed-source products make
sense:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/magic-cauldron/
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/
Pierre R. Mai
> This is the way vendors end up cast against one another, and the Free
> lisp comunity. The best licensing for a tool as far as benefit to
> the whole of the community is IMO, either public domain or a Free
> license that is palatable to the commercial vendors. The details of
> the license are dependent upon the work itself, and how it integrates
> with existing toolsets. Vendors say they need to reclaim their
> investment for these works, and that is how they justify proprietary
> licenses, but we can see these types of products being produced by
> other language communities with open licenses? How are they managing
> that?
Which _commercial language vendors_ are producing all those toolsets
with open licenses? Currently I'm only aware of either user
communities (like e.g. those of Perl, Tcl, Python, etc.) or
non-language vendors (like Sun with Java, Cygnus with C/C++/... or MS
with many other things), which are "giving away" add-on products.
They can afford to do this, because they are either not operating
under pressures to produce profit, or because they use the give-aways
(which cause huge losses) to bind users to their platforms/service
(whereby they hope to recoup their losses).
Regs, Pierre.
--
Pierre Mai <pm...@acm.org> PGP and GPG keys at your nearest Keyserver
"One smaller motivation which, in part, stems from altruism is Microsoft-
bashing." [Microsoft memo, see http://www.opensource.org/halloween1.html]
Craig Brozefsky
> > This is the way vendors end up cast against one another, and the Free
> > lisp comunity. The best licensing for a tool as far as benefit to
> > the whole of the community is IMO, either public domain or a Free
> > license that is palatable to the commercial vendors. The details of
> > the license are dependent upon the work itself, and how it integrates
> > with existing toolsets. Vendors say they need to reclaim their
> > investment for these works, and that is how they justify proprietary
> > licenses, but we can see these types of products being produced by
> > other language communities with open licenses? How are they managing
> > that?
>
> Which _commercial language vendors_ are producing all those toolsets
> with open licenses?
Well, off the top of my head, Scriptics, Cygnus, the guys doing
ActivePerl. O'reilly supports alot of Perl work, but they are not a
language vendor. I did not say above that it had to be "commercial
language vendors" that produced these tools. It may be that Lisp
vendors are not in a position to have resources allocated to these
types of projects. The spirit of my question was not "why can't those
bastard lisp vendors give me free shit.", rather it was "how are other
language communities using commercial resources to produce Free tools
for their language"? How are they funding this work, and is there a
way that the Lisp community (vendors included) could use their
methods?
One example that comes to mind is that a large portion of the Perl
modules available under the Artistic/GPL were funded by organizations
who worked with Perl, but are not Perl vendors. Often the module was
developed during the course of a project, or as part of the generic
toolset, and the time of the developer was paid for either directly or
indirectly by their employer. Alot of C/C++ toolkits were produced
this way as well, libtiff for instance got some development support
from SGI, tho indirectly.
A nifty Perl community tool is the CPAN archive. But something like
that is also supported by the fact that their is only one
implementation of the language and so portability is not such a major
issue, their module system and packaging conventions are well
established and supported by automated tools, the Perl community does
not place a heavy emphasis on completeness, and they have a tradition
of choosing integration over innnovation. CPAN allows Perl developers
to publish their code easily, and acts as a central exchange point for
modules.
Lisp does indeed have archives, but they are largely out of date, many
tools are not listed in them, and it's always a crap-shoot if the
thing will run in the implementaion you are using. Also, what I find
with Lisp is that code is usually packaged in very large chunks, in
applications, and not as small, single purpose modules. One can often
extract those things from the large chunks, like RFC822 message
handling and URL manipulation from cl-http, but it requires a bit of
work to extract them, and you would have to know where to find them.
Perhaps there is room for another type of Lisp archive, one which has
conventions which submissions must conform too, and emphasizes
smaller, single purpose packages. Submissions would have to be ANSI
clean, tho they could be optimized for different implementations,
documentation required for all exported functions, modules and
dependencies would be described using a Free defsystem like mechanism,
or perhaps something much simpler, a basic (require 'blah) mechanism.
The goal would be to facilitate the publishing of small chunks of Lisp
code, stuff that usually is packaged with larger chunks and difficult
to extract, or is not published at all. The easier it is to fine and
use someone elses work in your project, the better. It's a way of
generating and sustaining momentum.
This is largely the way I try and develop with both scheme and lisp.
Small portable chunks that will run in any implementation, well
defined and documented interfaces to the modules, and very simple
mmechanism for handling module dependencies that works across all the
implementations. It's very difficult in Scheme where the module
systems and namespace mgmt. is implementation specific, but it's much
easier in Lisp. I want to reduce as much as possible the friction
someone must overcome to use the work I have already done.
> Currently I'm only aware of either user communities (like e.g. those
> of Perl, Tcl, Python, etc.) or non-language vendors (like Sun with
> Java, Cygnus with C/C++/...
I'm not sure how you are classifying Cygnus as a non-language vendor,
they are all about development tools for embedded systems and their
main product is a C/C++/ObjC/etc... compiler. Sun I can understand,
they got the hardware business.
But as I said before, my question was not limited to the commercial
lisp vendors, but to the Lisp community as a whole, including
organizations who are just using it in their products or for other
internal projects and have no business interest in Lisp directly.
Kent M Pitman
> The spirit of my question was not "why can't those
> bastard lisp vendors give me free shit.", rather it was "how are other
> language communities using commercial resources to produce Free tools
> for their language"? How are they funding this work, and is there a
> way that the Lisp community (vendors included) could use their
> methods?
Are you very sure that the circumstances of all of these have been controlled
such that one-to-one comparisons as if all languages are structurally alike
and require equivalent marketing are appropriate?
Even just between CL and Scheme, there is a huge difference: Scheme is about
a small core and a billion add-on (often competing) libraries. CL is about
a large core with standard ways to do things so that people don't doodle their
time away competing on stupid little things that are "small fry" compared to
the application domain solutions for which CL was designed. Scheme can be
implemented in a short time as freeware, but it's quite hard to come out with
a CL in a short time. As such, you'd expect more freeware Schemes than CL's
because the cost of an initial investment is different. Saying that CL must
compete using the same financial/marketing model as Scheme would be crippling
one or the other, since surely the different structural nature of the products
means different distribution of cost is needed.
Looking to what we can learn from other vendors, here's what I conclude:
If we could just build a company as big as Sun that could afford to throw away
money on a dream of a different kind of system for years and years because it
had an auxiliary business that WAS profit-making, we'd be in great shape.
Let's make such a business. Can we do it with free software? (Doesn't look
like it will make enough money, but your mileage may vary.)
I think it's good to look at what others are doing, but I think it's bad to
assume that "others" are structurally the same. I'd like to see more attempts
in this discussion to qualitatively assess the structure and nature of the
companies and products using each of these, so that people could direclty
challenge the hidden assumptions herein about how "one company won this way".
One company is not another company. Coke and Pepsi are companies that can be
compared this way because they are the same kind of thing produced the same
kind of way. But comparing Kraft Macaroni and Cheese to Caviar in terms of
how they're marketed, even if they're both food, is going to lead to some
false conclusions. (No hidden implication intended about which of Lisp and
C++ or Java might be which food in that analogy... I prefer mac and cheese
to caviar, myself. But both do survive in the market and not by the same
tactics.)
Craig Brozefsky
> Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> writes:
>
> > The spirit of my question was not "why can't those
> > bastard lisp vendors give me free shit.", rather it was "how are other
> > language communities using commercial resources to produce Free tools
> > for their language"? How are they funding this work, and is there a
> > way that the Lisp community (vendors included) could use their
> > methods?
>
> Are you very sure that the circumstances of all of these have been
> controlled such that one-to-one comparisons as if all languages are
> structurally alike and require equivalent marketing are appropriate?
Yes, I'm aware that they are not all alike. But I don't think that
complete congruence is necessarry in order to learn from the other
languages and their respective communities. I am also not really
talking about marketing, I am talking about faciliating cooperation
between users of the language so that the set of tools available to
everyone (not just customers of a particular vendor, or those willing
to accept proprietary licenses, or those doing only academic work) in
the community can be increased. The difference as I see it is that
marketing is directed at bringing new people into the community, and
not neccesarrily as contributors.
Part of the work of doing such an analysis is finding out what doesn't
translate. I think the CPAN example I gave illustrate that strategies
cannot just be transferred over, but require a translation to fit the
very unique needs of Lisp. Some strategies will not fit at all.
> different. Saying that CL must compete using the same
> financial/marketing model as Scheme would be crippling one or the
> other, since surely the different structural nature of the products
> means different distribution of cost is needed.
Noone is saying that Kent, so you need not worry.
> If we could just build a company as big as Sun that could afford to
> throw away money on a dream of a different kind of system for years
> and years because it had an auxiliary business that WAS
> profit-making, we'd be in great shape. Let's make such a business.
> Can we do it with free software? (Doesn't look like it will make
> enough money, but your mileage may vary.)
And if we could convince Bill to give us some money...
You're welcome to try building such a business with or without Free
Software. I'm not interested in being a fiefdom to the disposable
income of some giant public owned corporation whose sole interest is
their bottom-line, something like Sun. Look at what it has done to
Java, which is "a dream of a different kind of system" with lots of
money thrown at it. I would certainly like to cooperate with the
existing lisp businesses, perhaps even start more of them myself, but
over-dependence upon them is just bad blood for everyone.
I also think its highly unlikely that anyone will produce such a
company, it's a pipe dream. These other communities prosper without
giant god-parents, and I think the Lisp community can as well. I
don't buy into the idea of Lisp being such a complex beast that Free
implementations will never be usable, they are usable right now,
several of them, and they are getting better. For some people they
may not have the features they need, and the commercial vendors are a
good choice for those users. It's the same argument that people made
about operating systems, and before that compilers, and before that
editors.
I prefer looking for some solutions which are more likely to happen,
and require smaller amounts of resources, some may classify it as a
"worse is better" approach, but I'm not sure I do. As you explain in
your analysis of the Lisp community as a series of political parties,
there is not a single, unified vision of how Lisp will/should be
developed, so we can agree to disagree on this, and still cooperate
when possible.
> I think it's good to look at what others are doing, but I think it's
> bad to assume that "others" are structurally the same. I'd like to
> see more attempts in this discussion to qualitatively assess the
> structure and nature of the companies and products using each of
> these, so that people could direclty challenge the hidden
> assumptions herein about how "one company won this way".
I am pursuing a strategy of finding tactics in other communities,
translating them over to Lisp if possible and then throwing them
against the well and see if they stick. Afterall, my real goal would
be to build tools that the community as a whole can use to cooperating
and build momentum, and if it doesn't jive with a large enough portion
of them, no amount of strategic know-how and analytic excellence is
gonna make a difference. The stuff that I am thinking of needs to
grow organically, so too much planning at the beginning is just
wasteful. I really appreciate your point about being careful in how
you translate from one structure to another, particularly when dealing
with something as unique as Lisp.
Kent M Pitman
> As you explain in
> your analysis of the Lisp community as a series of political parties,
> there is not a single, unified vision of how Lisp will/should be
> developed, so we can agree to disagree on this, and still cooperate
> when possible.
Yes, I agree that it's not necessary that everyone go about the same
approach. I was more focusing on getting people not to say "lisp is
doing something bad by not doing <x>" but more into the "lisp could also
do <y> and maybe double its chances for success". To the extent that this
is what you're trying to do, I have no real problem with it. I fear that
most people that start off on these kinds of lines have such a goal, but
that it gets lost along the way and that all the people that follow
after them think The Quest as defined is the Right Way, rather than
one of many plausible ways. I'm all for variation of approach. And in
spite of what I may appear to say about my hopes for the success of the
free software approach, I do respect those who try it.
I think it's "love of free software" (to the exclusion of all else)
can be bad. A bit like how the phrase "love of money is the root of
all evils" has been incorrectly shortened over time to be just "money
is the root of all evils". I think the latter statement is not really
true.
Anyway, thanks for clarifying your intent. I do indeed hope there's some
support we can provide each other as things go on, and that battling won't
be the primary mode of engagement.
William Deakin
> Shall we start a "Is Lisp thriving?" thread? :-)
Yes please. I've had enough of this death rubbish. Lisp is dead. Long live lisp.
Best Regards,
:-) will
Paolo Amoroso
> - Erian Concepts, http://www.linux-kheops.com/erian/osm/
I posted an old URL, sorry. The company's name is Erian Concept and its
current Web site is: