Open source dmd on Reddit!

[Walter Bright]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Seems kind of silly to me.  The big deal with the full source for DMD 
> being available is that if DigitalMars disappears in a puff of smoke 
> tomorrow, customers have a means of preserving their investment in the 
> language.  This can be a big deal for corporate users.

Back in the 80's when I started out in the compiler business, we'd often 
get companies calling us up with:

"we really like your compiler, but there's one little issue, it needs to 
be modified to do X. If it does X, we'd buy 1000/5000/10000 copies!"

So I'd modify it to do X, and breathlessly contact them:

"it does X now! where's the P.O? We're ready to ship!"

Then they'd hem and haw a bit, and say:

"X is cool, great, yeah, but we really also need Y!"

It became clear after a while that they never had any intention of 
buying any copies. There are a lot of possible reasons why they were 
jerking our chain, but the strategy we came up with was:

"sure, we'd love to do X for you, our consulting rates are $$$ and we 
estimate xxx hours to do the job. We need a down payment to start work."

If they were serious, no problem, we did good business with them. The 
ones who were jerking us around for whatever reason went away.

There are people who won't use D, ever, no matter what we do, even if it 
spit out gold bars and ended world hunger. But they won't say that, 
they'll just sit on the sidelines and throw potshots. It comes with the 
territory of building a disruptive technology.

The ones I listen to are the ones who *are* using D and have some sweat 
equity in it.