The economics of D

[Frits van Bommel]

Peter C. Chapin wrote:
> dan wrote:
> 
>> My only major concern lies in that d isnt open source and is therefore bound to walter.  if he goes, so does D.
>>
>> Maybe we should get life insurance on him?
> 
> Is there any reason (I'm thinking legal, mostly) why someone else
> couldn't in principle independently implement a D compiler? The D
> community is reasonably large and full of smart people, so I'm sure the
> talent exists. Right now the motivation for creating a third party
> compiler is low, but if Walter disappeared that might change.

An independent D compiler isn't a problem. There are even several in the 
works already.
The more likely problem is the D spec: it's copyrighted by Digital Mars, 
so only Digital Mars (and those it authorizes[1] to do so) may 
distribute it (and presumably nobody else may distribute modified 
versions). So until copyright runs out (unless Walter/Digital Mars 
transfers control of the spec over to some other person or 
organization[2]) the only option for continued evolution of the language 
may be a complete rewrite of the spec (perhaps based on the available 
compiler, but not on the current spec).


[1] I'm not sure if anyone else is currently authorized; even Tango 
(which has permission to redistribute DMD itself) seems to leave the 
spec out of their binary distributions that include DMD.

[2] In his testament, perhaps?

> I guess what I'm saying is that maybe the D community is already large
> enough to be self-sustaining.

Large enough? Quite possibly.
The legal issues mentioned above may be more problematic though, 
assuming the language is to continue to evolve.