ISO/IEC standard?

[Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d]

On Sun, 2016-05-15 at 12:41 +0000, Rusty via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> I've heard many people complain that D is a privately owned 
> language (which in my opinion hurts its adoption).

These people are lying, D is not proprietary. One part of one of the
realizations of a D compiler might have licence restrictions, but the
language is free as are two of the realizations of a D compiler.

If D was a proprietary language such as Java, C#, F#, Eiffel, then
there would be a problem, but it isn't it is a FOSS language like Java,
C#, F#, Python. Technically C, C++, Fortran are open languages but the
whole ISO standard system is as much a millstone to progress as it is a
guarantee of consistency.

> I do not share the same feeling, but was wondering how open the D 
> language really is?

Open is not a scale it is a Boolean. A language is either open or not:
if you make your own implementation will the lawyers come to sue you? D
is open in that you can submit change proposals or fork it for your
own. It is also versioned so there is public consistency for backward
compatibility.

> Are there any plans to have the D language standardized by 
> ISO/IEC?

The only real purpose of a standard is to ensure consistency between
multiple realizations of a thing. This usually means proprietary
realizations of a thing so that comparison is impossible. Hence the
Java idea of a TCK to be awarded the label of Java to something
claiming to be Java in the proprietary days. Now the test suite is FOSS
anyway can create a Java realization so no need for a standard.

Just because C, C++ and Fortran have ISO (or any other) standards
doesn't mean any other language should. Python isn't standardized, yet
it has traction in the market. Ditto Groovy. Will Go, Rust, etc. get
ISO standards? Who know, but highly unlikely I suspect.


-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel at winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

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