Re: We know what you need, and we'll push it down your throat.

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On Dec 29, 2006, at 4:37 AM, Abigail wrote:
> The fact that there's one source tree for Perl has several not 
> unrelated
> causes: Perl is a moving target; there's no formal specification; perl
> is complex, there just aren't enough people who are both willing and
> knowledgable to do another implementation of Perl. There's probably 
> also
> less reason to have more than one Perl implementation than there is to
> have more than one Unix implementation, or more than one C compiler.

One could point to WINE and repeat that paragraph replacing "Perl" with 
"Windows", and reach the conclusion that Windows is as open as Perl. 
And, in fact, I've run into Microsoft apologists who do make that 
point... and go on to argue that Microsoft is so constrained by 
existing applications that they're no longer in control.

I don't really consider gcc with its extensions as an open system 
either, for the same reason. It's entirely possible to be open source 
without being an open system. It may be easier for an open source 
system to become an open system, but it takes intent and effort to 
clean it up and tie it down and make that happen. If there's no will to 
make that happen, it won't.

• Abigail 10:37 on 29 Dec 2006
  • demerphq 11:17 on 29 Dec 2006
  • Peter da Silva 11:47 on 29 Dec 2006

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