An idea for commercial support for D

[Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d]

On 4 Jan 2015 08:35, "Joakim via Digitalmars-d" <digitalmars-d at puremagic.com>
wrote:
>
> This is an idea I've been kicking around for a while, and given the need
for commercial support for D, would perhaps work well here.
>
> The notion is that individual developers could work on patches to fix
bugs or add features to ldc/druntime/phobos then sell those closed patches
to paying customers.  After enough time has passed, so that sufficient
customers have adequately paid for the work or after a set time limit
beyond that, the patch is open sourced and merged back upstream.  It would
have to be ldc and not dmd, as the dmd backend is not open source and the
gdc backend license doesn't allow such closed patches.
>

Do what you want, but I don't think you could or should call it D from the
moment you deviate.

>
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=sprewell_licensing

There's no such thing as a hybrid.  You're either a cathedral or a bazaar,
and a hybrid approach is looking pretty cathedral to me.

>From a technical standpoint, how do you propose to deal with splitbrain
situations?  If your proposed closed solution is source-incompatible with
the open then you have failed as a model.

>From a pragmatic (though maybe philosophical) standpoint, having been in
active development in or around the core for 4 years, my observation (which
I believe Walter shared as well) is that back when DMD was partially
closed, there just wasn't much traction in development or adoption.  Right
now things are moving pretty fast, and I don't think DMD *can* get any more
open than what it already is.  Given the compelling correlation between
both popularity and contribution with the openness of development at the
core (ie: moving to github), history tells us that closing will only serve
to stifle and stop.

Regards
Iain.
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