[OT] Re: Perl Doesn't Suck

>>>>> "schwern" == schwern  <[email protected]> writes:
    schwern> Sun doesn't give out its JDK source code freely, they
    schwern> have all sorts of restrictions.  If I wanted to port the
    schwern> JDK I can do it, but I need special permission from Sun
    schwern> to distribute it.  This Sucks.  Especially considering
    schwern> that you could go through a whole lot of work and then
    schwern> have Sun deny you.

Speaking as someone with feet firmly in both camps (I'm a Blackdown
member and the Debian maintainer for the jdk and some of the largest
perl modules in that distribution), IMNSHO the fatal assumption made
by millions of people is that Java is OpenSource just because it's a
*language*.  It isn't.  Get over that expectation and life becomes
simpler.

Just because there's a Fortran or a COBOL standard doesn't make it any
easier to write compilers and run-time support from scratch for those
languages, regardless of platform.  And, no, no one will help support
you in this endeavour.  That's where things like Kaffe and Japhar find
themselves.  Perl's great blessing is also it's great curse; there's a
single implementation and that *implementation* happens to be
OpenSource.  Try writing a second Perl implementation from scratch.
Were something dreadful to happen to Larry and his estate chose to
change the licensing terms of the current *implementation*, where
would Perl6 go? Or even Perl5 for that matter?

-- 
Stephen

"Farcical aquatic ceremonies are no basis for a system of government!"