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

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 09/05/12 22:51, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> Yeah. The lack of open sourceness for the backend is pretty much complete FUD.
> No, you can't redstribute it yourself, but it's completely open for viewing,
> editing, and contributing.

Well, the backend licence fails to meet the standards of the Free Software 
definition or the Open Source definition.  Being able to freely redistribute the 
software in both verbatim and modified forms is pretty much THE major criterion 
for either.  It's not FUD to say so, just a fact.

The FUD comes in because people take that fact to mean that the situation is 
worse than it is (e.g. they might think the development process is partially 
closed, when it isn't), or try and read things into it that aren't true (e.g. 
they might think you can't write D programs to operate in a purely FOSS 
environment, when in fact you have GDC and LDC).  All of this creates for you a 
burden of explanation that has to be repeated and repeated to potential users or 
contributors.  A fully open-source reference compiler would take away all those 
problems.

On a more practical level, the inability of 3rd parties to distribute DMD could 
have an effect in limiting points of access to the software, with corresponding 
effects on the possible channels of contribution.  The ability to scale up the 
number of distribution and contribution channels is going to be increasingly 
important as D develops.