REBOL Scripting Language will soon be Open Source

[Pyromania]

News from Carl Sassenrath, REBOL Technologies
Part of Original Amiga Development Team

News below reprinted from this link


The time has come for REBOL to be released as open source. This is the only way I can see it regaining some degree of momentum and renewed interest -- not just within our REBOL community, but for many yet-to-be users who possess the curiosity or motivation to learn new and powerful programming concepts and techniques.

Here's my proposal

The R3 source code will be released under GPL 2 (most likely - still open to discussion.)
The official source release distribution (rel-src) will be made available from the REBOL.com site.
Developmental sources (dev-src) will be available on GitHub (or a similar service.)
From time to time the dev-src will be reviewed, selected, debugged, polished, and integrated into rel-src releases.
A small group of REBOL Masters (maybe three for now) will be in charge of such rel-src review, selection, revising, debugging, integration etc. as well as develop or encourage the development of new features, ports to new platforms, optimizations, etc.
My role will be to advise and guide such decisions to keep REBOL consistent with its principles, and I will hold the final power of veto, in cases where that becomes necessary.
What I ask in return

If this proposal seems acceptable, there's one thing I ask in return. That those of you who wish to influence and extend the design of REBOL do so with a full understanding of its principles. REBOL is not like other languages, and you will soon discover that REBOL source is not like other source. Architecture and design are important.

Although it is unrealistic to assume we can filter/fix all impurities that might come about in an open environment, we should all strive to minimize the degradation that comes about by seeking an easy solution over the proper and well designed form of such a solution. Even the naming of each symbol, function, and datatype is worthy of thoughtful consideration. That is how I've always treated it.

In the end a language or system should help developers make their programming tasks easier and their products more timely, affordable, manageable, and agile. Too often, it becomes the opposite. Let's always keep that in mind.

What's next?

So... this is it. Once R3 is released our course becomes irreversible. We'll all start paddling our canoes like mad in a small but rapid river... but one which I sincerely hope will carry us to a much larger ocean.

Please offer your comments and advice on any of the above. This is the final call. If you posted a comment on the prior blog that you want me to review again, please note its date and time. I'll go back and take a look.

My schedule is to finish this up next weekend and make the release by October 1st.

Carl Sassenrath, CTO
REBOL Technologies

[kolla]

More than a decade too late, the train has left.

[Duce]

More than a decade too late, the train has left.

Yup.

[A1260]

you can start paddling your canoes like mad, but it is of no use. the river have tried up and there is only mud... you will never get to the big ocean.

[dammy]

More than a decade too late, the train has left.

+1

[desiv]

We're on an Amiga forum pointing out something that is "too late?"

;-)

desiv

[nyteschayde]

We're on an Amiga forum pointing out something that is "too late?"

;-)

desiv

Hahaha, oh the irony. Agree though, rebol never really took off in my mind and as a professional software engineer I've never even heard of rebol outside of the Amiga forums. Java would have been a better effort.

[Darth_X]

+1

If REBOL was an OS...

[lsmart]

I think that Rebol has a chance to become relevant - now that it is open sourced. You can use Rebol to solve the same kind of problems that Hollywood was designed for. Rebol even has a better support for GUIs. Furthermore the core of the language could be extracted and used as a platform independent scripting/IPC language like AREXX. Or one could use it as an internal scripting language like elisp or tcl. There are some places Rebol could go.

Of course someone would have to discover Rebol and use it in an interesting way.

I don't think Rebol will be in a position to replace Java. But Java, while still leading the market, is starting to show its weaknesses clearer every passing year. Many people are already looking for real alternatives (C# is slightly more but a copy of Java). But with todays focus for ARM-CPUs and Linux we might as well look at native code again. Which also helps the performance on mobile devices (something that Apple really understood).