Lack of open source shown as negative part of D on Dr. Dobbs

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 10/05/12 00:23, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Wed, 09 May 2012 17:39:36 -0400, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
> <joseph.wakeling at webdrake.net> wrote:
>> .... and if I want to hack on Druntime or Phobos ... ? :-)
>
> For what purpose? To get it included in phobos/druntime? DMD.

Well, yes, that's my point.  If I want to contribute to Phobos/Druntime, I 
_have_ to use a partially-proprietary program.  To me, that's an irritation.  To 
other potential contributors, it's a blocking factor.

> But that's not exactly a problem with distribution, is it? If you're hacking
> phobos or druntime for purposes of improving phobos or druntime, why do you need
> to distribute snn.lib?

I didn't say I did.  I'm just observing that contributing to the heart of the D 
project requires me to install and use proprietary code.

To me that's a tolerable compromise as (as you say) the changes percolate to the 
fully open source solutions, and in any case DMD is in practice very open.  But 
there are people who _aren't_ willing to make that compromise, and others who 
will be put off before they even realize that compromise is possible.