www.digitalmars.com         C & C++   DMDScript  

digitalmars.D - Is D not-for-profit or not?!

reply "Jack" <jackblac esp.org> writes:
Tell!
Jan 29 2011
parent reply Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Saturday 29 January 2011 21:41:28 Jack wrote:

 Tell!


No trolling please.

D is a programming language. There's nothing about D which would be for profit
or 
not for profit. You don't sell a programming language.

The compilers could be for profit if they were sold, but they aren't. All of
them 
are open source, with the only snag being that the license for dmd's backend is 
such that you can see the source but not copy it and change it and whatnot. The 
frontend is entirely open source however, and both gdc and LDC are entirely
open 
source. Regardless, they're all free to download and use.

You can probably buy enterprise support for dmd from Digital Mars like you can 
with dmc, but I don't know anything about that, and that's buying support not 
software.

It really doesn't make sense to ask whether D is for profit or not. Programming 
languages aren't for profit. Their tools may be, but you don't buy or rent 
programming languages, so asking whether D is for profit or not really doesn't 
make any sense.

- Jonathan M Davis
Jan 29 2011
next sibling parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org> writes:
On 01/30/2011 12:56 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 On Saturday 29 January 2011 21:41:28 Jack wrote:

 Tell!


 No trolling please.


It's a legitimate question, one that's been asked many times, and one 
that I've never seen Walter answer. Instead, we have people who fill in 
answers for him.

I think it would make people more comfortable to know what Walter thinks 
with regard to D and money. Is he in it for money? If so, how does he 
plan to make it?

There's nothing wrong with being in it for money, but it would be nice 
to know up front and in what manner.


 D is a programming language. There's nothing about D which would be for profit
or
 not for profit. You don't sell a programming language.


Tell Google that programming languages aren't sold. They're being sued 
by Oracle for essentially implementing Java. One of the big reasons 
Oracle bought Sun was to get Java.
Jan 30 2011
next sibling parent reply Heywood Floyd <soul8o8 gmail.com> writes:
Jeff Nowakowski Wrote:


 There's nothing wrong with being in it for money, but it would be nice 
 to know up front and in what manner.



I've been meaning to ask, and I'll just take this oppurtunity, and it relates
to what Jeff just said:

If one would like to donate money to D, how would one do that?
Would it even make any sense? Or be needed?

And this naturally raises the question: Who/what owns D? Is it a non-profit, a
group of people, or a business? And regardless of who owns D, is there any
D-only organisation that one could support, financially? I'm not demanding an
answer, I'm just sharing my thoughts.

I mean, it would feel weird to donate money to Digital Mars, a for-profit
company, that does all kinds of things, including C++, right? If I was to feel
confident in donating it would have to be to some sort of formally founded
non-profit legal body with some sort of constitution like "to further the
development of D" or something. I don't know how these things work. I guess
right now D is too small and the legal cost of just maintaining such an
organisation would surpass any donations anyway.


BR
/HF
Jan 30 2011
next sibling parent reply retard <re tard.com.invalid> writes:
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 09:06:57 -0500, Heywood Floyd wrote:


 Jeff Nowakowski Wrote:
 

 There's nothing wrong with being in it for money, but it would be nice
 to know up front and in what manner.


 
 
 I've been meaning to ask, and I'll just take this oppurtunity, and it
 relates to what Jeff just said:
 
 If one would like to donate money to D, how would one do that? Would it
 even make any sense? Or be needed?
 
 And this naturally raises the question: Who/what owns D? Is it a
 non-profit, a group of people, or a business? And regardless of who owns
 D, is there any D-only organisation that one could support, financially?
 I'm not demanding an answer, I'm just sharing my thoughts.
 
 I mean, it would feel weird to donate money to Digital Mars, a
 for-profit company, that does all kinds of things, including C++, right?
 If I was to feel confident in donating it would have to be to some sort
 of formally founded non-profit legal body with some sort of constitution
 like "to further the development of D" or something. I don't know how
 these things work. I guess right now D is too small and the legal cost
 of just maintaining such an organisation would surpass any donations
 anyway.


D is basically Walter's language. He decides what goes in and how stuff 
works. People who live nearby are somewhat able to influence the process.

So far it doesn't look like any earmarked money has been used to buy 
specific features. For example I doubt that even if you donate one 
million USD, they won't rename the keywords or __traits into something 
readable or add built-in first class tuples. I also doubt you can make 
the dmc/dmd backend FOSS with any sum of money. If you wanted some 
changes badly, I'd recommend donating the money to some democratic 
community language without any BDFL persons. 

I once saw that money has been used to support dsource / tango 
development. Phobos OTOH is Andrei's child. I bet he earns at least 
$20000 per month at facebook so you would need to be extremely rich to 
persuade him or give something useful in return such as free time.
Jan 30 2011
next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 01/30/2011 08:27 AM, retard wrote:

 Sun, 30 Jan 2011 09:06:57 -0500, Heywood Floyd wrote:


 Jeff Nowakowski Wrote:


 There's nothing wrong with being in it for money, but it would be nice
 to know up front and in what manner.



 I've been meaning to ask, and I'll just take this oppurtunity, and it
 relates to what Jeff just said:

 If one would like to donate money to D, how would one do that? Would it
 even make any sense? Or be needed?

 And this naturally raises the question: Who/what owns D? Is it a
 non-profit, a group of people, or a business? And regardless of who owns
 D, is there any D-only organisation that one could support, financially?
 I'm not demanding an answer, I'm just sharing my thoughts.

 I mean, it would feel weird to donate money to Digital Mars, a
 for-profit company, that does all kinds of things, including C++, right?
 If I was to feel confident in donating it would have to be to some sort
 of formally founded non-profit legal body with some sort of constitution
 like "to further the development of D" or something. I don't know how
 these things work. I guess right now D is too small and the legal cost
 of just maintaining such an organisation would surpass any donations
 anyway.


 D is basically Walter's language. He decides what goes in and how stuff
 works. People who live nearby are somewhat able to influence the process.


This is a meritocracy: people who are good will exert an influence on 
the language and its standard library. Don is an incredibly strong 
contributor and he's living in Europe; I've only seen him once in my 
life. If Don had language design as a focus, I'm sure he would very 
strongly influence the definition of the language. This is because he is 
talented, competent, and motivated. Steve is in New York City. I don't 
know where other strong contributors are, but definitely they help shape 
the language.


 So far it doesn't look like any earmarked money has been used to buy
 specific features. For example I doubt that even if you donate one
 million USD, they won't rename the keywords or __traits into something
 readable or add built-in first class tuples.


That would take someone rich and incredibly petty. It's not, however, 
impossible that a corporation would seriously consider adoption of the 
language but would have a specific need that needs be met as a 
prerequisite. Such things happened with things like ABIs, interfacing 
with other languages and systems, specific libraries, certain 
optimizations etc.


 I also doubt you can make
 the dmc/dmd backend FOSS with any sum of money. If you wanted some
 changes badly, I'd recommend donating the money to some democratic
 community language without any BDFL persons.


I think that's just false. With money the backend could be bought from 
Symantec.


Andrei
Jan 30 2011
next sibling parent reply Caligo <iteronvexor gmail.com> writes:
On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu <
SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote:


 On 01/30/2011 08:27 AM, retard wrote:


 I also doubt you can make
 the dmc/dmd backend FOSS with any sum of money. If you wanted some
 changes badly, I'd recommend donating the money to some democratic
 community language without any BDFL persons.


 I think that's just false. With money the backend could be bought from
 Symantec.

 Andrei


What is so great about this back-end (no offense)?  Why can it not be
replaced with something like LLVM or GCC?  Why can we not have LDC or GDC be
the official compiler?
Jan 30 2011
parent "Simen kjaeraas" <simen.kjaras gmail.com> writes:
Caligo <iteronvexor gmail.com> wrote:


 On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu <
 SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote:


 On 01/30/2011 08:27 AM, retard wrote:


 I also doubt you can make
 the dmc/dmd backend FOSS with any sum of money. If you wanted some
 changes badly, I'd recommend donating the money to some democratic
 community language without any BDFL persons.


 I think that's just false. With money the backend could be bought from
 Symantec.

 Andrei


 What is so great about this back-end (no offense)?  Why can it not be
 replaced with something like LLVM or GCC?  Why can we not have LDC or  
 GDC be
 the official compiler?


Walter is intimately familiar with the current back-end, and he (perhaps
rightly) fears that if he looks at other back-ends, he is much more
likely to be sued for copyright infringement.

-- 
Simen
Jan 30 2011
prev sibling parent "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 11:55:28 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu  
<SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote:


 Steve is in New York City.


If you mean me, I'm in the Boston area (not exactly in Boston), and I  
bring a thousand curses on you for suggesting I'm from NYC ;)   
Unfortunately, all of us must turn our envious eyes on Green Bay and  
Pittsburgh this week...

-Steve
Jan 31 2011
prev sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
retard wrote:

 For example I doubt that even if you donate one 
 million USD, they won't rename the keywords or __traits into something 
 readable or add built-in first class tuples.


$1,000,000 buys a lot.


 I also doubt you can make 
 the dmc/dmd backend FOSS with any sum of money.


Sure you can. I don't know what the price would be, but Symantec is a profit 
seeking company. As far as I know, they have no personal or pride issues that 
would get in the way of a business decision.

Accepting donations makes me uncomfortable. If you want to support Digital Mars 
financially, please purchase one of our fine products at:

http://www.digitalmars.com/shop.html

get a D coffee cup at:

http://www.digitalmars.com/gift/index.html

buy a programming book at:

http://www.digitalmars.com/bibliography.html

or hire me to speak about D, programming, compilers, etc., at your company.
Jan 30 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent Trass3r <un known.com> writes:
 If one would like to donate money to D, how would one do that?
 Would it even make any sense? Or be needed?


I still think something like Google Summer of Code would help the most.
But I guess a task like "fix bugs in the dmd frontend" won't be accepted :(
Jan 30 2011
prev sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 01/30/2011 08:06 AM, Heywood Floyd wrote:

 Jeff Nowakowski Wrote:


 There's nothing wrong with being in it for money, but it would be
 nice to know up front and in what manner.



 I've been meaning to ask, and I'll just take this oppurtunity, and it
 relates to what Jeff just said:

 If one would like to donate money to D, how would one do that? Would
 it even make any sense? Or be needed?

 And this naturally raises the question: Who/what owns D? Is it a
 non-profit, a group of people, or a business? And regardless of who
 owns D, is there any D-only organisation that one could support,
 financially? I'm not demanding an answer, I'm just sharing my
 thoughts.

 I mean, it would feel weird to donate money to Digital Mars, a
 for-profit company, that does all kinds of things, including C++,
 right? If I was to feel confident in donating it would have to be to
 some sort of formally founded non-profit legal body with some sort of
 constitution like "to further the development of D" or something. I
 don't know how these things work. I guess right now D is too small
 and the legal cost of just maintaining such an organisation would
 surpass any donations anyway.


 BR /HF


The best thing for D would be if a large company with a FOSS presence 
would use it. That means people would be implicitly paid for using and 
contributing to D. It would also instil confidence in other companies to 
use the language.

Beyond that, there is this site (I forgot the name) that allows people 
to offer and ask money for certain projects. I guess that would be a way 
to fund D projects.


Andrei
Jan 30 2011
parent reply Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw ubuntu.com> writes:
== Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org)'s article

 Beyond that, there is this site (I forgot the name) that allows people
 to offer and ask money for certain projects. I guess that would be a way
 to fund D projects.
 Andrei


You mean http://flattr.com ?
Jan 30 2011
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 01/30/2011 11:33 AM, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 == Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org)'s article

 Beyond that, there is this site (I forgot the name) that allows people
 to offer and ask money for certain projects. I guess that would be a way
 to fund D projects.
 Andrei


 You mean http://flattr.com ?


Found it in my browser history: www.fundry.com.

Andrei
Jan 30 2011
next sibling parent Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw ubuntu.com> writes:
== Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org)'s article

 On 01/30/2011 11:33 AM, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 == Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org)'s article

 Beyond that, there is this site (I forgot the name) that allows people
 to offer and ask money for certain projects. I guess that would be a way
 to fund D projects.
 Andrei


 You mean http://flattr.com ?


 Found it in my browser history: www.fundry.com.
 Andrei


Both look pretty much identical to me. :~)
Jan 30 2011
prev sibling parent David Nadlinger <see klickverbot.at> writes:
On 1/30/11 6:41 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 01/30/2011 11:33 AM, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 == Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org)'s
 article

 Beyond that, there is this site (I forgot the name) that allows people
 to offer and ask money for certain projects. I guess that would be a way
 to fund D projects.
 Andrei


 You mean http://flattr.com ?


 Found it in my browser history: www.fundry.com.

 Andrei


There is also http://kickstarter.com – not that I'd used a single one of 
them.

David
Jan 30 2011
prev sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 On 01/30/2011 12:56 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 On Saturday 29 January 2011 21:41:28 Jack wrote:

 Tell!


 No trolling please.


 
 It's a legitimate question, one that's been asked many times, and one 
 that I've never seen Walter answer. Instead, we have people who fill in 
 answers for him.
 
 I think it would make people more comfortable to know what Walter thinks 
 with regard to D and money. Is he in it for money? If so, how does he 
 plan to make it?
 
 There's nothing wrong with being in it for money, but it would be nice 
 to know up front and in what manner.


Paid speaking engagements, hosting conferences, paid support, training, 
consulting, etc.



 D is a programming language. There's nothing about D which would be 
 for profit or
 not for profit. You don't sell a programming language.


 
 Tell Google that programming languages aren't sold. They're being sued 
 by Oracle for essentially implementing Java. One of the big reasons 
 Oracle bought Sun was to get Java.


There are no D patents or trademarks.
Jan 30 2011
prev sibling parent reply "Akakima" <akakima33 gmail.com> writes:
"Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisProg gmx.com> a écrit

Why are you trying to change the meaning of Open Source ?

Open Source comes with principles. It comes with a spirit. It about freedom.
It's about *freely* sharing knowledge, tools, ...
It does not come for more rights for the one who started distributing the 
knowledge.

AFAIK, D is not a trademarked language. So everybody can produce a compiler 
for it.

DMD is Digital Mars D. The Digital Mars implementation of D.
Digital Mars is the vendor of this compiler.



See:



enum Vendor; Master list of D compiler vendors.


  DigitalMars Digital Mars
  const Vendor vendor : Which vendor produced this compiler.

  DMD is not Open Source.

  The backend licence is not an open source license.

  There is zero souce code for snn.lib (which is a part of DMD).

  >
  > D is a programming language. There's nothing about D which would be for 
profit or
  > not for profit. You don't sell a programming language.
  >
  > The compilers could be for profit if they were sold, but they aren't. 
All of them
  > are open source, with the only snag being that the license for dmd's 
backend is
  > such that you can see the source but not copy it and change it and 
whatnot. The
  > frontend is entirely open source however, and both gdc and LDC are 
entirely open
  > source. Regardless, they're all free to download and use.
  >
  > You can probably buy enterprise support for dmd from Digital Mars like 
you can
  > with dmc, but I don't know anything about that, and that's buying 
support not
  > software.
  >
  > It really doesn't make sense to ask whether D is for profit or not.

Yes it does.
Because one must look at the spirit. Not at the words.

When we talk about "D". We talk of the whole. It's not about the 4th letter 
of the alphabet.

Open Source community will glady help a truely Open Source Project.
D has it's place there.

A lot of individuals has worked very very hard to get there place under the 
Sun. They are trying to create a world where there is collaboration and no 
competition.

Every body is welcomed to join the efforts.



 Programming languages aren't for profit. Their tools may be, but you don't
 buy or rent programming languages, so asking whether D is for profit or
 not really doesn't make any sense.

 - Jonathan M Davis
Jan 30 2011
parent reply Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> writes:
Am 30.01.2011 18:23, schrieb Akakima:

 "Jonathan M Davis"<jmdavisProg gmx.com>  a écrit

 Why are you trying to change the meaning of Open Source ?

 Open Source comes with principles. It comes with a spirit. It about freedom.
 It's about *freely* sharing knowledge, tools, ...
 It does not come for more rights for the one who started distributing the
 knowledge.

 AFAIK, D is not a trademarked language. So everybody can produce a compiler
 for it.

 DMD is Digital Mars D. The Digital Mars implementation of D.
 Digital Mars is the vendor of this compiler.



 See:



 enum Vendor; Master list of D compiler vendors.


    DigitalMars Digital Mars
    const Vendor vendor : Which vendor produced this compiler.

    DMD is not Open Source.

    The backend licence is not an open source license.

    There is zero souce code for snn.lib (which is a part of DMD).

    >
    >  D is a programming language. There's nothing about D which would be for
 profit or
    >  not for profit. You don't sell a programming language.
    >
    >  The compilers could be for profit if they were sold, but they aren't.
 All of them
    >  are open source, with the only snag being that the license for dmd's
 backend is
    >  such that you can see the source but not copy it and change it and
 whatnot. The
    >  frontend is entirely open source however, and both gdc and LDC are
 entirely open
    >  source. Regardless, they're all free to download and use.
    >
    >  You can probably buy enterprise support for dmd from Digital Mars like
 you can
    >  with dmc, but I don't know anything about that, and that's buying
 support not
    >  software.
    >
    >  It really doesn't make sense to ask whether D is for profit or not.

 Yes it does.
 Because one must look at the spirit. Not at the words.

 When we talk about "D". We talk of the whole. It's not about the 4th letter
 of the alphabet.

 Open Source community will glady help a truely Open Source Project.
 D has it's place there.

 A lot of individuals has worked very very hard to get there place under the
 Sun. They are trying to create a world where there is collaboration and no
 competition.

 Every body is welcomed to join the efforts.



 Programming languages aren't for profit. Their tools may be, but you don't
 buy or rent programming languages, so asking whether D is for profit or
 not really doesn't make any sense.

 - Jonathan M Davis




  I think you're mixing up "Open Source" with "Free Software".
Jan 30 2011
parent reply "Akakima" <akakima33 gmail.com> writes:
  I think you're mixing up "Open Source" with "Free Software".


No.

Aren't you mixing up free with $ ?

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

and read some of the history of the FSF.

There are free (0 $) products/software that comes with no source and a 
little freedom.

Some vendors associate free with 0$, an solely with $.
By doing this, they put a price on freedom.

Freedom begins by free. There is a reason for this.

Exchanging money is a legitimate way of exchanging energy.
Problems arise when this is the only way of exchange.

I think Walter is making an effort to go Open Source. His intentions are not 
clear to the mass because he never expressed them. He may not be at ease to 
do so.
He sure did within the inner circle of D.

Look around. The world is becoming open.

There was a time, when Open Source was not invented, when giving away 
"source code", would have been viewed as a crime, a friend of mine, gaved me 
the source code of a fortran compiler.

That source code camed on microfilm. I was so excited. In a state of joy.
I read all of it with a a microscope! I learned. I shared.
Jan 30 2011
parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Sunday 30 January 2011 10:14:58 Akakima wrote:

  I think you're mixing up "Open Source" with "Free Software".


 
 No.
 
 Aren't you mixing up free with $ ?
 
 See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
 
 and read some of the history of the FSF.
 
 There are free (0 $) products/software that comes with no source and a
 little freedom.
 
 Some vendors associate free with 0$, an solely with $.
 By doing this, they put a price on freedom.
 
 Freedom begins by free. There is a reason for this.
 
 Exchanging money is a legitimate way of exchanging energy.
 Problems arise when this is the only way of exchange.
 
 I think Walter is making an effort to go Open Source. His intentions are
 not clear to the mass because he never expressed them. He may not be at
 ease to do so.
 He sure did within the inner circle of D.
 
 Look around. The world is becoming open.
 
 There was a time, when Open Source was not invented, when giving away
 "source code", would have been viewed as a crime, a friend of mine, gaved
 me the source code of a fortran compiler.
 
 That source code camed on microfilm. I was so excited. In a state of joy.
 I read all of it with a a microscope! I learned. I shared.


Yes, you're mixing up Open Source and Free Software. The FSF is about Free 
Software. They think that people have a right to source code, and that all 
source code should be free as in freedom. Open Source is much more pragmatic. 
It's about making the source available, because that results in better
software. 
It's the difference between the philosophies of Richard Stallman and Linus 
Torvalds. It's a huge difference in attitude.

They _do_ tend to use the same licenses, since open vs free is very much a 
matter of attitude and goal rather than code, but there are gradations in 
licenses with GLP v3 being more of a Free Software license whereas BSD or Boost 
are more along the lines of Open Source, because they have fewer restrictions. 
Typically though, there's no real difference between an Open Source and Free 
Software project from a coding perspective.

The dmd frontend is open source. The backend can't be because Symantec owns it, 
but the code is available to view, and you can submit patches. I believe that 
gdc and LDC are fully open source. Phobos and druntime use the Boost license. 
They're definitely open source. Whether the intention of any of the
contributors 
to those projects is to support Open Source, Free Software, or just work on
code 
that they need or like is completely up to them.

If you want to use dmd, gdc, or LDC in an open source or free software project, 
you are free to do so. If you want to use them in proprietary projects, then
you 
are free to do so. I really don't think that the dmd, druntime, or Phobos team 
is trying to make any kind of political statement here. As a whole, we are 
emmenently practical. Some of us may very well be big supporters of Free 
Software. I don't know. You'll have to talk to individual developers to know 
exactly how they feel.

But as a whole, we're just trying to get a solid language with solid tools out 
there, because we love the language, we want it to succeed, and we want to use 
it.

- Jonathan M Davis
Jan 30 2011