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Open Source Community reaction to ActiveState & Perl
feeder sent us a recent Techweb story purporting to talk about the Open Source community reaction to the announcement from Microsoft and ActiveState about ActiveState being funded to extend Perl support under Windows. The story is indicative of some of the standard concerns-but how much do we have fear - what does everyone think?
That's Joe Camel. When Congress put him out of work it was quite a blow to him. Depression set in and he started abusing drugs. It was mary jane for a while and then the harder stuff -- crack, horse, blow and so forth. He had to sell his stuff to support his habit and finally resorted to dealing. He was arrested in 1996 for possession of cocaine -- he had several ounces on him that he was going to sell.
He turned states' evidence in return for a reduced sentence and made it out on parole in 1998. He's been through rehab, doesn't even smoke anymore, doesn't wear those shades that he used to wear to hide his dilated pupils and has his self respect back. He's been trying to break back into show business (You may have seen him in The Mummy earlier this year) and this is a good steady job for him.
Now you know.
The entire reason that Perl on Win32 exists in as good a form as it does is because Microsoft wanted to ship Perl in the NT Resource Kit a few years back, having recognized its importance, and hence paid for the port.
In doing so, a somewhat roughshod port & a set of new packages were created. Since then, things have been cleaned up a lot and Win32 is a well supported Perl platform, largely due to MS's original investement.
Now they're just doing exactly the same thing. Of *course* they want to make Perl MS-proprietary if they can. However, they really can't. Perl itself is not controlled by MS or ActiveState, so there's no way they can get total crap into *true* Perl.
ActiveState always has, and will continue to, distribute a version of Perl that it has compiled, no doubt together with some new modules etc., but I don't really think this will change things too much. It certainly can't affect Perl on other platforms since they can't directly affect the real Perl distribution, so all us Unix people are quite safe.
Now, they could fork Perl and produce an MS-only version, but would that be *so* bad? *If* this happened, then ActiveState would certainly continue to graft in any enhancements to the Perl core and hence users wouldn't lose anything much, except for perhaps a time delay, much like the one that we have now waiting for AS to give us a new build.
We can all argue that adding Win32 features is poluting Perl, but I can't really agree. There is no logical reason Perl should not expose Win32 APIs (via modular modules) other than the MS-is-shit-Down-with-MS-I-am-a-sheep attitude.
Based on what I've read of users' comments on the latest incarnation of VB, along with some comments Microsoft have let slip about warming up to Perl, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft were to replace VBA with Perl in the future. It makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. I'm sure those of us who are stuck with MS apps would appreciate being able to work with Perl rather than VBA.
We can only hope AS keep MS from making Perl for Windows as trashy as VB. If not, I'm sure there will always be a non-Microsoftized distro of Perl for Windows.
slashdot broke my sig
"Standard" Perl? I thought it was whatever Larry thinks is cool.
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Do not discount the fact that you have free will.
find it hard to believe because of my utter cynicism towards MS, though. We'll see.
The only reason the installer isn't open sourced is probably because it's Install Shield, or some other commercial Windoze installer. Not a big loss IMO. Give me rpm or a debian package anyday.
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Do not discount the fact that you have free will.
"Look we don't want to destroy Open Source. We're helping out with a prominent Open Source project!"
It's all about M$ getting their name in the papers with this positive Open Source spin.
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Do not discount the fact that you have free will.
It's doubtful that an installation program or various other proprietary add-ons would be covered by the GPL in any case. The GPL can't solve all the world's problems.
BTW: perl is dual licensed under the GPL and the Artistic license.
Posted by d106ene5:
Copyrights and IP law generate government condoned monopolies.
Then storm the bastille you twit. The laws as they stand allow activestate to turn a buck. Move to Madagascar if it bothers you.
Posted by d106ene5:
there is no formal definition and
read the code to the perl interpreter. it'll tell you in a pretty straightforward manner what is kosher and what isn't.
its formal enough to get munged into machine code somehow, so that should be formal enough for you.
Posted by d106ene5:
That has to be the most incomprehesible piece of gibberish I've read all day.
You could ghost write the unabomber's manifesto.
Posted by &E:
But the point is, I think, that once Perl has been adapted to make better use of Win32-specific functions, that MS could change/tweak/modify those functions. ActiveState would most certainly be aware of these types of changes coming down the pipe well before you or I, and can make anticipatory changes. Suddenly, the new functionality that Perl is supposed to have only works on Windows 2000, or NT4/5. So you want to keep using Perl, right? but you're using Win98. Now you have to upgrade your OS!
Trickery Trickery Trickery!
Posted by &E:
... poof! gone)
Don't forget that MS has a habit of introducing functionality in one release, then removing or hiding parts of it in the next release. Like your MS DOS with your Win98 (all sorts of switches and options from the DOS that shipped with Win95 are
It's not the OS extensions you gotta worry about, it will be the IIS-specific extensions to Perl that MS will use to "extend" and marginalize the standard. And they'll sell it in some nifty development tool, probably compulsarily bundled with IE, IIS, Office, and Windows, people (non-geeks) will start using that, and that will be the start of the fragmentation.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Ok.. You can ruin Java, but stay away from my Perl!
Yes, the camel is the symbol of perl because we used it on the cover of the O'Reilly book. Larry asked for a camel because he thought that a camel was ugly but well-adapted to its environment. So the association was made by Larry, but because of the book.
Tim O'Reilly @ O'Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472 http://www.oreilly.com
Is anyone going to moderate this spam/flamage? The response is way out of proportion to the original post.
An esoteric scratched itch:
Homeworld Map Maker Tool
- Tk::FileSelect (or it's front-end top methods getOpenFile() and getSaveFile()). The response to various configuration paramaters varied greatly - '-initialdir' and '-defaultextension' is ignored and '-initialfile' was buggy on the NT Windows platform; on the other hand, the '-filetypes' command was supported on Windows and not in the X version. I eventually ended up wrapping it to hide the differences.
- The tear-off menu items are nonfunctional in Windows, but can't be removed.
Other than this, there were some minor font sizing descrepancies, and the usual expected differences stemming from the basic nature of the underlying OS - file names, etc.Having a portable windowing toolkit is a good thing... Even if you don't actually run a particular app on more than one platform, you need learn only one toolkit for both - MS must hate that. And of course, Perl is just about the best thing since sliced bread.
An esoteric scratched itch:
Homeworld Map Maker Tool
My apologies, |_124rD_K1n6.
Alright, Microsoft pays somebody to extend Perl. So what? If it's OpenSource then the community can take whatever, if anything, they want. If not its a waste of money on their part. There's still a lot more non-NT stuff out their and Perl itself is still evolving. So if they take an anti-OpenSource attitude NT users will be faced with using revisions of Perl that are behind the Open Source community.
Most of the article was FUD. So what if people make money off of writing installers based on Perl? People make money already writing Perl as developers.
yeah i cant understand why 'tcl/tk' combo, isn't used more (ah mention the name 'sun' anyone?). If anyones interested, go to the scriptics.com site and take a gander.
m$windows has always lacked a standard scripting language, unless you count vbscript, vba and visual basic. dont fancy learning 'm$-perl' though.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
can u give 'us an url to go peek at the win32 perl version yr using. i remember having a look at it many moons ago and i wasn't impressed. guess i'll have to goto perl.org.....
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
the fact that they put out C++ hasn't killed the compiler market, has it?
though the number of competitive commercial 'c' compilers on the windows platform hasn't exactly florished.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Well, I can see a whole new market from this. Helping all those poor MS suckers (oops I mean developers) to code their scripts without using MS extensions. Already, I've made extra money working wih NT admins cleaning up their PERL scripts because they can't get these scripts to glue anything outside of Win32 enviroment. So come on MS I need a Ferrari for next year!!
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
Then, after they have distributed it with the the operating system (probably in a Service Pak)
Well it is a bit late for fears like that. MS has been distributing a version of Perl for quite some time now. It comes on the NT Resource Kit CD. It is Perl 5. I don't know what build it is. But most of the latest Win32 modules of much value do not work with it any longer. I am not sure if they distribute updated builds in the RK suplimentals. I use Perl on a daily basis in my Winblows NT admin duties. It is a godsend for the junk MS gives for administrators. Do we need MS to put their hands into to stew from which Perl cooks? That is VERY debatable.
01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01010011 01001001 010
In the heat of my rant, i used "open standard' interchangeably with "standard.'
Allow me, to quote some you and some of the others, to try and make my argument more intelligently.
My point was that I have never seen a standard that M$ whole heartedly embraced WITHOUT some tweaking on their part. (This is not to say the other companies, as someone pointed out Netscape HTML, have not done this as well.) But i think we all have seen M$ attack various markets, seemingly because they are not currently in them, and then, via agressive marketing alone, create some bloated, over-hyped, PRODUCT.
I may be wrong, and ALL companies do this! Ok. That said, then let me ask this, why does it seem that M$ is always trying to subvert a standard?
Why, therefore, has M$ with all the R&D and marketing $$ to spend been unable to produce an OS that is as stable as Linux is? An OS put together by a band of programmers committed to supporting proposed standards? It seems that the Linux contributors are trying to make better sw that works WITH the standards. Change for the bettter, not change to sell product.
I think that i read a quote by Linus that he would be happy with an OS that you never had to buy an upgrade for!
Perl, at the moment works fine for most people. Can anyone honestly say that, if there ever became an MS Perl, you'd ever be able to stay with one version?
FWIW
Russ
Sorry the examples i used misspoke my point. Yes most of these standards are proprietary. My point was that, these standards have achieved some legitmacy in the market and had gained a following. Instead of supporting that following, M$, IMO, instead chose to try and subvert those standards, either by mudding the standard with their own "extensions" or creating somthing to directly compete.
Sorry for the "whacked" examples.
Russ
As far as RTF and Postscript go, actually when you look under the covers AND how RTF is pushed by M$, they are not THAT dissimilar, especially when you look at business documentation. If you remember prior to RTF and True Type fonts, Adobe had a tremendous amount of the market. People were just begining to use Postscript as a file interchange format and not only as an output format. There was a need, as documents were now containing more fonts, graphics, etc., to be able to better interchange documents among applications. There was movement to use postscript as the underlying format for documents since it supported all types of documents. M$, instead chose to create and promote RTF as the interchange format of choice. So, what was originally intended to support any type of doucment interchange NOW supports, primarily wordprocessor documents, and Word documents the best. My point with this example was that, instead of trying to support Postscript as a format for interchange of documents, as all publishing types/houses use postscript pretty much, and Adobe Type 1 fonts, instead RTF was created so that M$ could have control instead.
I would agree that Netscape has also muddied the HTML waters as well. I think they are guilty too!
But my point, and my examples weren't good, was that why MUST M$ always create a competing standard? As a SW user, as i'm sure you are, doesn't it frustrate you that, in answer to a problem you may have with software that you use, M$'s response is to use M$-only products?
(What if i don't want IE in Win98 cus i want to use Netscape or Opera? Why do i HAVE to have that chunk of code in my OS?)
As far as the protocols you mentioned, i think someone responded that they HAD tried to extend their implementations of them.
Sure, to use your example, Netscape muddied HTML, did M$ HAVE to do it as well?
Was there truly a need for MS Media Player, or did that need arise when M$ could no longer control Real Audio?
Is Dierct3D better than OpenGL? (Or is it the fact that M$ can call the shots on the former?)
And to use your own examples, Java, HTML, Basic, and XML. Shouldn't the fact that, you admit that these have been/will be perverted, kind of not speak highly for M$ both in the past and in the future?
FWIW
Russ
True! The point about Poscript, that i made to someone else was, that at the time, BEFORE True Type and RTF, there was an effort to promote Postcript as an underlying format for all types of documents. M$ response was to announce and create RTF. Initially, the thrust of RTF was supposed to be for ALL document types, not just wordprocessors. M$ was able to push this wedge and get energy focused on RTF.
Ultimately, as you correctly describe, RTF has emerged, not as a universal document interchange format, but as a wordprocessor interchange format, that works best for Word.
FWIW
Russ
Well, apart from ActiveState. They're gonna get screwed, obviously. Why companies still enter into "partnerships" with Microsoft is a mystery to me. The best they can hope for is to get assimilated.
fish and pipes
Perl is not released under both licenses. It is released under EITHER license.
However, anything released with perl should necessarily be released under either as well, not only one specifically, because then users of it no longer have the choice.
> to embrace and extend Perl MS just has to call it something other than Perl.
Right. Great. If they want to do it, more power to them. I don't believe that free code is only to be used by good guys for good purposes, and I won't define what "good" is. Free is free. As long as they don't call it Perl, I don't care what they do with it.
I also don't think MS can kill Perl.
However, your parallel of MFC/C++ with J++/Java is somewhat flawed. Adding MFC libraries to C++ made no difference because if you're writing apps in C++, it pretty much _has_ to be platform specific. The reason one might port to Java isn't speed, it's portability. You can write Java apps and run them anywhere.
MS made their Java IDE create Java apps that would run ONLY on Windows (unless you jumped through hoops). (Actually, only on a MS JVM running on windows... even worse). So anyone using J++ from MS was defeating the ENTIRE purpose Java was created. What were they thinking? They also made thier JVM so that it wouldn't run 100% pure apps as well as MS java apps. Again, not trying to stay true to the Java concept.
No, MS didn't kill Java... but they tried as hard as they could to co-opt it. What will they do to perl? Perl's licence should keep them from making proprietary Windows 'language extensions', but since when has MS cared about that? they'll do it anyway, and let the layers deal with it.
And if they do add 'extensions' to Perl, and make a VB-style IDE for Perl? --It makes CGI programming, Perl programming easy! Yaay, use it! (oh, and if you don't change lots of settings, the Perl will only run under a MS interpreter. The MSPerl interpreter is free, though, and easily available, so no problem, right?).
It won't kill perl. Most Perl is used on platforms that MS can't influence, and by people who don't like them. They may try (and they may not, who knows?), but I don't think anything will come from it.
Only the Artistic License is mentioned. Perl is licensed under both the GPL and the Artistic License. So no, the changes will not be made available under the same license.
Sorry, I was using 'standards' in a generic sense and in that Microsoft likes to mess with them. Of course there is no ANSI or ISO standard for PERL.
There is a "Standard Perl", which is the official codebase designed and released by the PERL core team. That's what I don't want messed with. PERL modules are fine....
ActiveState may not be out to 'embrace and extend' PERL, but MicroSoft probably is.
This is probably the first step toward a Microsoft PERL[tm]. Then, after they have distributed it with the the operating system (probably in a Service Pak) and given it away to thousands of developers and developer CD, the embracing and extending comes.
Many of us will know the difference, but many, many more will not. What we need to do is be able to educate developers on what the word "Standards" means (MS has a really weird definition) and come up with further strategies on how to prevent corporations from hijacking our software. The GPL is good, but nothings been tested yet.
Hang on. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
jf
Wrong. GPL is much more restrictive than the "Artistic" license because of it's "viral" abilities.
use Tk;
use Tk::Dialog;
MainWindow->new->Dialog(-title => "MsgBox", -text => "MsgBox is not needed - use perl/Tk. You get the added benefit of cross-platform compatibility.", -wraplength => "4i", -default_button => "OK", -buttons => ["OK"])->Show;
Medichlorians would be first-level primitives. Booleans would use light\dark instead of true\false. You destroy an object by setting its alignment to dark, or maybe by incrementing its anger counter. A | (lightsaber) would be used in place of a ;. The core distribution would include the Light and Dark modules. use Dark| lets you create objects which have kill and choke methods. And of course, "The source is strong in this one."
It's very possible. Check out "Windows NT User Administration" by O'Reilly Press. The book is all about managing an NT network using ActiveState's Win32 port of PERL.
NT is one of the things I have to admin at work. I have no choice. At least the PERL makes it more interesting (and flexable)
If the MicroPerlGUI stuff required a proprietary core, it would fade because M$ can't keep up with the legions of Perl hackers, so it would be the loser in a fork. And if not proprietary, it won't fork Perl.
If they did it as a module, some enterprising hacker would quickly write a module to make theirs appear like the Tk stuff.
--
Infuriate left and right
I get really passionate about this because I believe in libre source software. Folks, no matter what M$ does, they cannot steal the source. You have your copy. M$ cannot take that back.
Suppose the worst the Artistic License lets them do is release their own MicroPerl with proprietary core additions that they don't release source for. Now what?
You still have the real Perl. And M$ has just inherited a can of worms, trying to keep their proprietary version in sync with the legions of Perl hackers maintaining the real thing. If they succeed, it robs them of a lot of manpower, and for no gain, because, either way, they are incompatible with, and have lost the utility of, the thousands of CPAN modules. Can you spell W-O-R-T-H-L-E-S-S?
Now let's go to motive. Why would M$ want to hijack Perl? I mean hijack as in destroy, not hijack as in use productively. Their reason for destroying Java is to prevent "write once, run everywhere" as a Windows alternative, and to piss off a competitor (Sun). Guess what? Perl isn't a similar threat, and there is *no* competitor to damage.
You naysayers and doomsayers remind me of politicians with knee jerk reactions. Grow up, figure out what's between your ears, learn how to use it for yourselves without being a slave to Microsoft. Whether you follow them slavishly, or react against them slavishly, matters not. You need to think for yourselves, not for or against Microsoft!
--
Infuriate left and right
Well, it could go either way. On one hand, to quote Larry, "perl is a post-modern language"... and as such adapts to it's surroundings. If Microsoft Windows is it's surroundings, then it would make perfect sense to integrate API calls and the like into perl. Whether it's developed by a proprietary company, or developed openly, doesn't matter too much: what matters is that more developers will use perl.
free software broke into the market by creating better, faster, and cheaper products than commercial ventures did. I see no reason why it wouldn't be different here... once a idea reaches "critical mass", some developer will start the development of a free version of whatever module is in demand. The important thing here is.. perl will be exposed to alot more people.. which means that perl will be developed alot more quickly.
Maybe we will wind up paying for Feature X for awhile, but if enough people want it, a free version will be created.
--
If anyone "killed" java it was sun.
F /...
One only need to look at their recent jsdk fiascos to see where sun is great at mucking up their own ideas. They should have given control of Java to the community long ago.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
This is just MS defending itself from Christiansen's intiative to create all Unix facilities for NT via Perl. Well, maybe not. I just had to chime in.
Could this be a new attempt to firewall themselves legally?
"We (M$) didn't make that product, Ms Reno. AS did it. Go talk to them."
Plausible Deniability?
to purchase Windoze in any of its forms. As a sysadmin for a mid-sized company, I'm planning to ditch as many of our currently small pool of Windoze boxes ASAP.
The fact that perl would be more redially availalble on the platform is of no real comfort. What good is having a great tool if the underlying OS can't be trusted to simply run?
Give me *nix in any form and I'll find a way to get my user's work done with it. Fix that MacOS, too....but keep that Imac away from me.
Scary? I do it for a living! I probably could have written that book! I'm babysitting 1200 NT boxes in four states, with nothing more than the resource kit and my trusty Perl scripts. Anything I need to do, I can write.
I agree that M$ can't break the core because ActiveState isn't the sole repository of the code, like they did with Sun. I would be happy if they would just FINISH the implementation! I want my fork() and gethostbyname() and stuff.
If they add an interface to the GUI (even MsgBox() would be good) that's a bonus, but I want all the "not implemented"s fixed first.
-- Spring: Forces, coiled again!
Actually, I don't know about this. IMHO, there will always be a standard Perl distribution released by the Perl development community. Seriously, Perl is as likely to fragment as the Linux kernel source tree. Besides, it's the developers choice to add on extra modules to add functionality, such as Windows API calls. The ActiveState distribution will likely be this core Perl release along with these extra modules. And if they change the core of Perl, they themselves stated they would release these changes to the community. So where's the confusion? Perl is still Perl, and the only way to use platform dependant features is to expressly choose to (ie, use WinAPI::blah)... it's not as if there's going to be a WinPerl out there.
Although Windows 9x leaves a lot to be desired on the stability front, it is a mistake to assume that all code that comes out of Microsoft will be bad. There are a lot of very talented, dedicated people working at Microsoft, and although they produce their fair share of crap, there are a lot of good products that they produce. DirectX is a good example - the first couple of incarnations were shit, but now they've got a pretty neat multimedia API. Sure, it's got some problems *cough*DirectSound*cough*, but the quality is improving all the time.
I've met some of their engineers, and I can assure you that the ones I met were earnest, dedicated and professional, and committed to producing something cool and neat. Now, I agree that they've got some pretty sick bastards higher up the scale in management, but don't let that fool you. The engineers are still human.
While I agree with the gist of your argument, TrueType was developed by Apple and later purchased/licensed by Microsoft. While Postscript is a general-purpose stack-based page-description language, RTF is an interchange format for word processing. They don't serve the same purpose at all.
-- Robert Coie Implementor, Intrigue Ltd.
Wake Up Sheeple
In a time when you are forced to watch your heros go corporate(linux, Redhat, the whole "geek" lifestyle in general) what you do and how you respond speaks volumes to the true nature of your intents.
Mostly what we have here are the wailing of spoiled 3/_33+/5+5 and "LIfe style in a box" sellouts who think becuase they call themselves "GEEKS" they are any less vapid then yuppies, buppies, hippes and republicrats.
Each and every time something comes along , fact or fictional, that rocks the tree house the wail goes up. The lattest round is Perl. Hey, guese what, theres been perl on MS machines for a while now. Do you feel threatened by that? Dose your moral ineptitude fall apart in the face of that fact?
Perl on windows means more people are expoused to perl....which if you follow the IDEAS behind the life style most of you have bought from your local mall, is a GOOD THING. The more people turned on to these ideas the better.
Purists, jihaders and thier little cousins the 3/_3+3 will of course see this as a BAD THING, because it erodes the power base they can call thier own. Tin tyrants with smiles and "You are evil becuase..." rehotric do more harm to the idea of a Free Flowing Open Exchange of Ideas than all thier little nightmare monsters and spindoctored fears.
"MS is the enemey!!!"
"No Redhat is the enemy!!!"
"Look now IBM is getting too big again, they are the enemy!!"
"This chesee sandwich im eating is the enemy!!"
Fear, as the little green muppet said, leads to
the Dark Side. And folks,as the skinny heroin junky once sang. Welcome to the jungle.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
So your saying that people ("non geeks" in your terms) using perl are the problem?
No clearer statement of 3/_3+3/5+ slime need be said, that says it all.
Hey knucklehead, get off your jihad crusade stallion and realize the you me and all inbetween are PEOPLE, and that we not only make up soylent green, we make up the world you live in.
Its got to be a sorry little kingdom where in you are besiege 24/7by the hounds of the PEOPLE, stelaing your music, your lifestyle, YOUR SCRIPTING LANGUAGES..
How do you survive brave warrior of the Chosen? Tell us your holy secrets.
[and this my fellow readers is what the core of many problems stem. learn from it to avoid it]
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
If you want to truly disarm MS you dont stand and ball like a child whose pop rocks supply has been cut off....You learn thier tactics and make sure there is no hope of them using them on your own stuff or stuff you care about.
To wit, read a little more about Active State perl and its particulars before you start the hand wringing and appocylpictical chantings.
As the plastice bristly hair miltary man once said, after I pulled his cord, "knowing is half the battle"..(the other half is a good sucker punch but they didnt put that on his recorded sayings.)
Learn and grow....Bellyache and get milk of magnesia
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Personally, I dont care what Microshaft does with PERL as long as any added 'features' are open source and under the same license. I think they should use modules (CPAN?) for any type of extra functionality they want, but I guess they will do it their way.
So, how 'damaging' are all the Unix specific features of PERL? Did these features fragment PERL? Are you confused by the Unix features? If you are going to bash OS specific features of PERL be thorough!
Umm.... perl is GPL'd. And it's covered by the Artistic license as well, to avoid the viral properties and much of the nastiness of the GPL.
So, M$ gets some custom Win32:: modules, and the win32 platform-specific code gets some extra stuff in it to make up for the limitations in Windows. Big deal. This is no different from the platform-specific bits for VMS, MVS, OS/2, Plan9, or half a dozen different flavors of Unix.
/proc, or the SYSUAF) is all that portable.
Anything that ActiveState puts into the core has to be covered by perl's licensing terms, so the source'll be in the main tarball. And if they really want to fork off the source tree and make changes they don't release, well, that's OK too by perl's license.
Besides, 90% of the perl people write is platform specific anyway, so who really cares? Is it so much worse to have a perl program that does Windows specific stuff than it is to have one that does something Linux specific, or VMS specific? It's not like code that plays with the registry (or
Perl will remain perl regardless of what M$ might like to do to it. They've as much chance of coopting perl as they do coopting Linux.
Of course, in the long term, VJ++ didn't help Java's progress, for the following reasons:
1. Java is/was not Open Source. Java is a business oddity, an attempt to make money off of a language. I've never understood Sun's business plans concerning Java. As much as one would like to see Microsoft take a hit in the judicial system, it's hard to see the Sun-Microsoft case as helping the development of Java. In any event, Sun's stranglehold on Java prevents developers from effectively providing true cross-platform compliance a la perl, as well as system-specific extensions that may only apply on a given system (e.g. interacting with the Registry without having to write a JNI-compliant DLL).
2. Microsoft attempted to Visual-Basic-alize Java. VJ++ 6.0 was a disaster. It tried to attract the VB crowd with drag-and-drop components and lickity-split event handling, and in the process, failed to take into consideration that people might be interested in creating applications that would work with something other than IE4+. (This is not to say that all IDEs or RAD tools are evil, only ones that force you to use proprietary language extensions.)
Perl cannot be subjected to these pressures. Perl32 hackers have already lived in a world with multiple versions available (before all versions were absorbed into ActiveState's) and will be quite willing to return a multi-version world -- and thereby use the version that suits them best. It's up to the individual developer to make their own choice, based on project and platform concerns. And choice is good.
I cannot envision a scenario in which Microsoft support (even for evil purposes) can harm the future of Perl. Let 'em take their best shot, I say. That way, we'll know what Win32:: modules need developing. :-)
...allow his beloved BASIC be cast aside and be replaced. He still thinks that it's a good programming language.
Can you imagine WordPerl? BillG thinks it's oh-so-clever to have BASIC as the scripting language for the Word (even though Word macros look so unlike any real BASIC programs that you'd never be able to tell that they're supposed to be the same language).
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Inate paranoia makes me suspect of anything that MS touches. Personally, I hope you're right, and I also hope that people simply won't use anything that creates incompatabilities. I do know it can be complicated writing cross-platform code in MS J++. Small changes can be as problamatic as big in that they seem innocuous.
May the corporate world wake up and accept the future that benefits all.
Microsoft can contribute a lot. If it's good, and if it benefits Perl (like a fork() for the Windows platform) it will be added to Perl, be it in the core, or as a module in the standard library. If they come with crud, it will never find its way to Perl.
:-P
I think that's more like only if they come out with crud (which sure they will), will it find its way into Perl
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
I found this quote from the article to be particularly odd: One Perl user, who did not want to be named, said: "It doesn't stop a company with no interest or standing in the Perl community from exploiting years of hard work, donated by a cast of thousands, for its own gain." Indeed, it doesn't. The point is, there's nothing that's supposed to stop people from doing that! That's the whole point of the license!
If you want to place restrictions on the software you write, by all means go ahead. If you are serious about restricting other users from doing things you don't like, I suggest you go much further than even the GPL and simply license it under specific terms for specific uses to each user. That way you can pull the license any time you like if someone's doing something you don't want him to do.
cjs
The world's most portable OS: http://www.netbsd.org.
The worst case scenario that I can think of is that ActiveState develops some Tk-like library that let's you create GUI widgets, but is not cross-platform.
OK. Then we have Tk stuff on UNIX and Tk-mutant stuff on Windows.
How bad is that really? Will this kind of "balkanization" halt the development of good Perl scripts for the Unices? I doubt it.
Color me not worried.
"But I don't think any language COULD live up to that amount of hype"
A language made by George Lucas?
Sorry, I think this must be wrong. I work with one fellow who discovered at some point that an OS upgrade to an NT IIS server broke all his Perl stuff; so he abandoned Perl, in favour of VBScript. Honest to every deity you can imagine.
To me, a webserver always has Perl available. If NT 4.0 broke my server, I know what I would have replaced. Hint: it wouldn't be Perl. But for many NT admins, the point is single-sourcing. If it's an MS product, it's in; and if it's not an MS product, it's out. This is because of the putative greater compatibility between programs on an all-MS box.
And never you mind the evidence! Integrated solutions work, no matter what your experience is. If your experience suggests otherwise, you need thousands of dollars in support services.
in some ways and bad in others. Perl is not going to be hijacked by M$, it cant be. I think M$ wants to add more perl functionality to IIS and BackOffice because they keep getting their asses kicked by Apache. No one other than MSCE soul less NT admins really use ASP. Perl is used on a majority of servers because it can run anywhere unix can run, which means high end super systems or cheap scrapped together Pentium 100's with alot of RAM. I would like to see perl ported to Windows so I could use them instead of writing arcane batch files or VB scripts. I can't run my batch files through emacs to see if I made any naughty little typos.
Why is there an Office 2000 ad up in the top frame?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
This shouldn't be too scary. It's my understanding that Perl was created for system administration, and it proved to be a sufficiently general tool that it came to be used for a greater variety of purposes. I've heard it said that Perl is the only thing that makes WinNT administration possible, since those pretty GUI tools don't scale well. I think it's used in NT for user administration, extracting data from log files, etc., the same sort of stuff it's been used for in Unix. Practical extraction & reporting language (or pathologically eclectic rubbish lister. TIMTOWTDI).
I'd say that when it comes to java, HP has done much more to
destroy it than all Redmond inhabitants together. This could change
though.
Java is only the latest occurance.
Microsoft deliberately killed
Stac Electronics' Stacker during
codevelopment for use with DOS 6.0
and marginalized IBM's OS/2 during
codevelopment that lead to WinNT.
I'm sure there are other examples
I'm missing.
Java was not the first, and if MS
has it's way, PERL will not be the
last.
Microsoft does not play fair, they
play to win and they are VERY good
at it. This is not reason to hate
Microsoft, it is reason to be wary.
Bob
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Furthermore, this deal testifies to the strength of Perl in the marketplace. I'm sure Gates would be much happier if he could ignore Perl and focus corporate resources on marketing Visual Basic.
And if M$ feels that having a good Perl implementation will lure people from the Unix world to NT, they might actually put some competent people to work on the project. M$ Word was a decent word processor ... back when they were competing with WordPerfect.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
Yes, Microsoft implemented these standard protocols, but AFAIK, they did not attempt to subvert them in any way. In fact, the only standard that comes to mind besides Java or HTML (or perhaps Basic, if you want to go that route) that MS has or will prevert (besides their own formats and protocols, of course) is XML.
The main reason that Micros~1 had such an easy time subverting Java is that it was mainly a consumer product, so Micros~1 controlled the ONE VM that the vast majority of users would be using. Most users with IE didn't know a VM from a toaster, and didn't really care, as long as the pretty little animations work OK. With PERL, Micros~1 is trying to compete with web servers running various flavors of UNIX, and people using PERL are usually knowledgable enough to get a standard PERL for NT if they don't want the extensions. So bending PERL to their omnipotent will is much more difficult.
12dec0de's post is the first informed post Ive seen on the artistic license. to repeat his words: it is often said the GPL is too restrictive ... this situation will show us what a more lenient license will produce.
to embrace and extend Java MS will have to (1) re-implement Sun's VM and class libraries and (2) call it something other than Java.
to embrace and extend Perl MS just has to call it something other than Perl. They can use the existing Perl code as a springboard just as used BSD's TCP/IP stack when Windows needed to get on the Internet in a big hurry.
let's not get our knickers in a twist over this.
MS P++ may well have a clicky drag-and-drop forms design front end before they're done. so that folks can design things that look like Perl/Tk apps without thinking. We can safely ignore this if we refuse to lobotomize ourselves by consorting with wizard interfaces & what-you-see-is-all-you-get dialog designers.
MS will probably come up with MSPAN is to promulgate Win32-specific P++ modules. It'll only become insidious if MSPAN has better stuff than CPAN. That'll only be a problem if Perl Mongers start thinking in a Win32-centric way. Figure MS will come up with P++ modules for every conceivable Win32-specific feature and every embraced and extended standard they've assimilated. I hope that MS spends their own billions funding that effort. I also hope the Forces of Good will spend our own efforts on platform-agnostic modules that will dwell in Light in Holy CPAN with the Saints.
The Dark Lord will not succeed in embracing Perl and extending it into MS P++ unless we yield to the temptations we know that he'll extend.
and that OS will improve as a result.
and Micros~1 Needs a good modern language
and the API requirements of a Win32 port will tend to open now closed Micros~1 code.
Seems like win-win to me.
Perl cannot be corrupted, but it can and will improve its operating environments
I want Perl as deep inside as we can get it
Lets call it Beauty and the Beast
Just another perl hacker in Bangkok
This is a scary title:
Windows Nt Administration Using Win32 Perl:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos
I wonder if it's even possible without something like a complete overhaul of ActiveState.
HELLOOO? Is there anybody in there? The GPL is more free. If MS successfully embraces and extends perl with proprietary extentions, and then does not release those under GPL, then YOUR freedoms have been infringed upon. You can't look at the source. You can't give a friend a copy. You can't add your own extensions. If MS added stuff and THEN GPL'ed it we wouldn't be HAVING this discussion.
Why is it that people always assume corporate presence is part of a "free market"? Wake up call: people like microsoft depend heavily on government intervention to enforce their stupid patents and copyrights. This is not free. This is usually called a monopoly.
Repeat after me:
Copyrights and IP law generate government condoned monopolies.
This is not a difficult concept to grasp. Sure, its supposed to spur competition, but modern corporations like microsoft have become very adept at exploiting it.
For the most part this is probably harmless, adding more cruft to Win32::* is no biggy, and it won't affect us non-windows folks anyway, only help the poor bastards stuck maintaining NT or some such. There is only one concern I have... if they add stuff to the core.
Microsoft does not have the respect for programing language design that they should. Look at VB, its practically designed by focus groups. As long as there remains a sanity check in force on what gets added the core of Perl we should be fine. But the last thing Perl needs is a few more weird-ass core methods or syntax kludges, we got enough of those already.
Open GL Chrome
Real Audio MS Audio Player
Quicktime MS Audio Player
Java MS Jave w/ActiveX
Wouldn't Open GL / DirectX be a better comparison? Chrome was never even released so I'm not sure how fair of a compairson it to anything is.
As for the RA, QT, and Java, none of those are open standards, so what's the difference??? RA is whatever Real says it is, QT is whatever Apple says it is, and Java is whatever Sun says it is.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Warning: With the GPL you can keep you changes closed as long as you keep it in your company.
If you distribute amodified version then you must distribute the changes. There is a little trick here, you're not forced to give the changes as long as they don't change the external world.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
uhmm it is a subset of gpl or so i believe..
my bad
artistic license
You may charge a reasonable copying fee for any distribution of this Package. You may charge any fee you choose for support of this Package. You may not charge a fee for this Package itself. However, you may distribute this Package in aggregate with other (possibly commercial) programs as part of a larger (possibly commercial) software distribution provided that you do not advertise this Package as a product of your own. [ heh.. Microsoft P++ ? ]
hrm, it's not gpl.. and it is rather confusing. will they have to provide the source to the changes that they made or just point to where to get a real version of perl? [point 3-a, 3-c in the license.]
I have to admit in the perl case I really don't
see the problem. It isn't like perl is a well
defined API, there is no formal definition and
every time I upgrade perl -something- breaks because of a perl change.
Alan
Yes, MS probably wants to control Perl and make it proprietary, just being who they are. However, this is AS doing work. They are getting paid by MS, yes, but they are not MS.
If the hideous thing happens and it looks like AS's Perl is becoming proprietary, there have been several people who are willing to step up to the plate and keep creating a "plain" Win32 distribution. And anything that is proprietary will not make it into core Perl.
Me, I'm not going to worry.
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
i think ruby rod said it best in 5th element when he said "but who cares?" ... microsoft could start buying rocks and making a giant statue to bill gates and i still wouldn't care ... if they want to start paying reporters to try to make a panic, i hope they have fun wasting their money ... because i think on the whole geeks are geeks because they are too intellegent to fall for any kind of compaign even a f.u.d. campaign
-
if knowledge is power, the internet is god - me again
This not the first article I've seen on this topic where posters refer to, "...the way Microsoft killed Java."
I respect the programming language Perl and understand that it is very powerful. I am not a Perl coder, however (yet).
I use a handful of other languages, though. Java is one of them. I'm not "married" to any language (well, ok, C perhaps) and can get along fine if one or more of them is "killed". If Java really was killed, I would say, "Bummer -- it was a nice language," and fire up the C or C++ compiler.
That hasn't happened yet. Reports of Java's demise are greatly exaggerated.
It's more accurate to say that Java has not lived up to its hype. In 1996, pundits expected everyone to be porting all of their C++ apps to Java in 3 years. Obviously, that's not happening.
But I don't think any language COULD live up to that amount of hype or that aggressive a time table. Furthermore, anyone who expects companies to rewrite millions of lines of legacy code written in very popular, powerful languages like C++ is just not being realistic.
I recognize and thoroughly resent Microsoft's attempt to "embrace and extend" Java with incompatible libararies. Honestly, though, did anyone really think that Microsoft would just stick with Sun's standard and not try to add their own goodies? I look at C++ vs. Visual C++ here. As best I can tell, Microsoft's Foundation Classes have done nothing to harm good ol' C++. When programmers want portability, they just don't use MFC.
So Microsoft may not support pure Java anymore. So what? Sun and others make perfectly good runtime environments that are zero-cost and run just fine on Win32.
In short, it just bugs me when I see people pronouncing Java "dead". Especially in a forum like slashdot where FUD is a four-letter word. Why all this langauge "holy war" nonsense anyway? Is anyone really willing to bet the farm that their favorite language today will be their first choice in ten years? If Java goes away and I decide to code in Perl, so be it. The langauge is just a tool.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Microsoft have partially ruined Java with J++
Well they tried and failed.. Somehow I can't imagine that publishing a crappy IDE could subvert a perfectly healthy language. Come on, there's JBuilder, VisualCafe, VisualAge etc, and for the purist, JDK + . Somehow I just don't see what all this fuss about java being destroyed by MS is about.
To me Java is alive and well, and I love it...
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Oops: "JDK + " . "any text editor"
;)
Sorry for that
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Yes, Microsoft implemented these standard protocols, but AFAIK, they did not attempt to subvert them in any way. In fact, the only standard that comes to mind besides Java or HTML (or perhaps Basic, if you want to go that route) that MS has or will prevert (besides their own formats and protocols, of course) is XML
And given that MS is on the standards committee for XML and XSL, and has been heavily involved in the design and standardisation work for XML and XSL, this is decidedly unlikely. Check out the W3C if you don't believe me.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Sarathy Gurusamy made the first announcement of all of this to perl5-porters about two weeks or so ago, and it was discussed quite to death. (Read the archives if you're interested.)
Things seem resolved for now, unless ActiveState changes things... and if they do, the perl5-porters group will have quite a lot to say about it.
But for now, things seem just hunky dory.
BIFFSTER, perl porter
No Matter how hard they try, M$ Can't brainwash Larry, all of CPAN, perl.org; even if they do corrupt ActiveState, who cares? Perl will live on.
I've been using PerlScript for ASP now for several months. It makes developing on NT that much less unpleasant when I have to.
And I've used ActiveState's Perl since the first builds of perl5 for win32. That's been a couple years now, and I don't see perl ruined by that... in fact, it's created MORE Perl programmers!
I'm personally quite excited about fork() for Perl on NT, among other things.
But Whatever M$ does, they can't "Ruin" Perl or any other language, anymore than America can ruin the English language (despite some of the arguments to the contrary...) Even if they make proprietary crap for Perl for win32, good for them! It won't hurt Perl as a whole, nor effect the non-M$ world one fig.
Looking over the press release and the FAQ at activestate's web site, I find a couple of interesting things.
1. "We are very pleased to continue this relationship with Microsoft," said Dick Hardt, CEO of ActiveState.
2. Microsoft funded the first port of Perl version 5 to Windows in 1993.
Doesn't sound like this is any new deal, just renewing an old arrangement. It's too early to tell what this will mean, but let's see what happens.
Reinventing the wheel has already been invented.
>I'd love to see you write articles / program / music / art / do photography for a living, and then have your stuff blatantly copied all over the place. Then we'll see how you feel about copyright
Imitation is the high form of flattery.
The Industrial Revolution ended a while ago. No new ideas. For example, Moog synth != new idea. Try Pipe organ. That was a moderately new idea. It was the original sythesizer (besides that old dead composer who first mixed who first mixed different voices.) It mixed voices through the use of levers. Computer != new idea. Studied by Ada, Turing long before there was one sold. GUI's invented in 1970's != new idea. Every device that requires human input has labeled buttons. Check out your stereo. (or do you need to read the instructions first to find the play button. This is why VCR's are hard to work with. People are inhumanly lazy.)
I would love free enterprise in a perfect world. Really, but Earth ain't OZ, and the wizard was a little man there (hint hint). The fact is all I see as far as free enterprise in making big money is those hot air balloons^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hstocks, and long costly meetings about how to beat the system, screw the customer, and get of town when it all crumbles.
Sorry but I've already solved my problems. I have a simple job. And as far music, programming, art, photography, articles are concerned I can do anything I want in that area including making money. I've already secured my survival. There's no CEOs breathing down my neck that they don't like with my using Freenices. There's deadlines. I set those and seem to be able to keep them. No one can tell me don't write this or that kind of music cuz we'll drop you off the label. I don't answer to anyone when I'm creating. I do have plenty of opportunities to make connections with other people and make even more money. And that luxury I owe to open source.
So what if I don't fly to Europe every other day. They don't get along very well there anyway. Besides, who wants to share space with whiny striking unemployed government subsidized citizens. (It's true. The French have completely lost touch.) Get real.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
from the human race.
Answer one question PLEASE! Why must you be so simple-minded? Why so superficial?
You moron, non-geeks happen to think they're living in fucking Eden. They have various SIMPLISTIC Horatio Algier wet American dreams and philosophies stated in fewer words than in those stupid pamphlets that try to explain sex.
America is no more demoratic than all the other so-called democratic republics. Our govt gets to hide behind the mock-muckrakers we call the news media. We still have our guns. Check out Australia. They no longer have guns.
Human nature can't be stopped not even by the geniouses who came up with our 66% voting system (a sysytem that allows a candidate to win without killing the competition. If a candidate wins w/ 66%, the opposition only has to be 100% effective the next time around, that is each 1% of the oppositon only has to turn around 1% of the other group in order to win. Since 66% is enough candidates can concentrate on doing their campaigning not racketeering. If it were 51% to 49% this country wouldn't have lasted a week.)
Stealing scripting languages... First of all, If MS says they wrote Perl, non-geeks buy it. Without Perl, or any other scripting language, work does not get done! ISP's would die out. You cannot go around creating applications in C++ and having to deal with all kinds of useless bloatlibraries when what you need is a fucking script that knows to delete all files unauthorized or change permissions on binaries by reading a text (human readable) config file. I shouldn't have to keep up with the latest X-server API just to write a decent tool for keeping things in order. No one has a right to own opportunity. Why should people have to keep reinventing the wheel because some imbecil decides he's a fucking God. Oh, yeah you forgot, in the old days we had fucking poll taxes. You breathe you pay.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
I believe this announcement is a very big deal. After all, like said in some other comments, Microsoft have partially ruined Java with J++ and are probably intending to do the same thing with Perl. Implementing a few calls like fork() is ok, because NT is so weak because of the lack of this call, but I don't really think Microsoft should get its nose in there.
KrAphtd1nN3r
"Code free or die!"
"Code free or die!"
Mercifully much of that has changed. The perl community has pushed out a mess of Win 32 support both in the core and in the libraries to make the code more Windows-friendly. You can compile it with Mingw32, Borland C++ or Visual C++ without too much difficulty, thanks in some part to the contributions of ActiveState, some of which were rolled into the 5.005 distribution.
As for a "Microsoft Perl", the fact that they put out C++ hasn't killed the compiler market, has it?
Free for use is the biggest load of double speak I've heard lately. It tries to coopt the term "free software" (in the FSF parlance) while completely opposing the spirit of this concept. Let's be honest. Real translation:
------------
Q: Will the work be Open Source?
A: Most of the work done for Microsoft will be released as Open Source, but some of it will be distributed only as proprietary Win32 binaries. Part of our business model is to sell proprietary components that only run on Win32. Everything that is not Win32 proprietary will naturally be distributed exactly under the same terms as Perl. (Because it has to be.)
The ActiveState installer for Perl and any other technologies that we develop and want to make money from, such as PerlScript and Perl for ISAPI, will continue to be proprietary Win32 only binaries.
In summary, some of the things we do will be Open Source, and the remaining things will continue to be proprietary Win32 only binaries.
-----------
Look, fact is, yeah - ActiveState is attracting people to Perl. But at what cost?
Even if they keep it open they can do a great deal of damage by implementing MS Windows-specific functions. That would fragment Perl and introduce much confusion into even the usage of the term, "Perl". Would even the GPL protect against this kind of "embrace and extend" strategy? I think not.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
I have seen this beat to death in just about every forum that has any kind of interest in it, but what most people are doing is (avoiding|ignoring|not even looking for) the facts. They assume that since Microsoft's name is associated with it that it must be bad.
The facts are:
1) Microsoft is not doing anything except giving ActiveState money to fund developing of features which ActiveState customers have said they'd like to see in the Win32 version.
2) Most everything will be Open Sourced. The only exception thee note (although they don't say this is the only exception) is that the routine for installing ActivePerl on WindowsNT.
That of course isn't all there is to it, but already it seems like less of a threat to me. I'm not trying to back up MS, but it seems to me that if this causes any problems it's AS's fault not MS.
Windows Scripting Host is what they're calling #2 now ... active-x interface so vbscript, jscript, and perlscript can wreak havoc outside the browser.
Seeing all the expected flamage over the issue makes me wonder how many people posting actually know anything about coding Win32 Perl ... ActiveState (under other names) was initially tasked and paid by MS to make a better Perl port to NT (so getting more funding to do more work shouldn't be chilling or even surprising) - this being back before the standard source wouldn't build particulaly well with NT compilers.
Having a clean installer (along with the bonuses of being able to twiddle with the registry and such) makes scripting on Windows boxes so much nicer, particularly when I want to ship out some nice utility to a friend or client that doesn't have a compiler and if they did wouldn't know what to do with it.
But hey, the article mentions MS, so let the knee-jerk reactions continue.
What I witnessed in the Perl newsgroups lately is that more and more people are asking for help with installing modules using ActiveState's PPM (Perl Package Manager). Those people (and they seem to be a majority) are obviously unaware of the fact that they do not have to rely on ActiveState's precompiled modules but that they actually can install them in the standard Perl way:
perl Makefile.PL
nmake
nmake test
nmake install
(or "dmake" instead of "nmake", with Borland C++).
IMO, this is precisely the kind of "embrace" that threatens the freedomware (ingenious new term, BTW!) from commercial companies like Microsoft.
As a consequence, I think I will release future versions of my modules under the GNU GPL only (and not optionally under the Artistic License as well anymore).
As an aside information, I was the one to complain about the license of the original Perl Resource Kit, Win32 Edition, which stated that the whole Kit was proprietary, its use restricted and modification and redistribution forbidden, in violation of both the Artistic as well as the GNU GP License (just read it if you don't believe me).
After much arguing with O'Reilly, they admitted that their license was in violation and that future editions of the Kit would have a different license, stating clearly that the Perl core was evidently Free Software.
As you can see the danger is real, and commercial companies will - intentionally or uncaringly - start nibbling away the freedom from Free Software if we don't pay attention.
Of COURSE Microsoft wants to get its hand on Perl. They're trying to control the web server market, and what good would a webserver be on a platform that has no Perl CGI support? I don't think this would go over well with very many web developpers. Microsoft is trying to make Win32Perl better so that IIS can support CGI better. I know ActiveState was not originally in cohoots with Microsoft, but it only makes sense for Microsoft to get in on the game.
Well, neither is really an organization. Both are businesses, and that should be enough to answer your question. They collaborate because they feel it will increase their revenues.
Sam Jooky
ActivePerl doesn't even always work right. My copy (build 517) returns "text file" if I use the -d test on a variable that has a file name as its value. But the same test returns "directory" for . and ..
Don't worry people, with shoddy programming like this...... activeperl won't last very long! I just wish that someone would get all the features in BePerl working correctly.
---Got Coffee?---
there were 2 sub directories besides . and .. in the directory I was testing. Maybe it is something specific with my system then, but it said that . and .. were directories and that the sub directories were text files.
---Got Coffee?---
JediScript?
---Got Coffee?---
:P
-=Knowledge of software commands does not mean mastery of concepts=-
A few points:
1) Must have features. What do you think Caldera, RedHat, and SUSE are doing? They are differentiating their products so they can make money. Just because MS doesn't sell MSLinux (TFG!), doesn't mean they shouldn't brand their stuff. It's great that Perl is a must have feature. Remember different != wrong.
2) When MS "did to Java", do you mean Java the cool OO language, Java the portable language, or Java the platform as it is preached in the Bay Area? MS likes the first, don't really care for the second, and can't stand the last. s/Java/Perl and tell me what would MS say? Larry is not out pounding the drum with IBM for PerlOS Network computers, so it's not the third. Perl is not "Write Once, (test/pray/run) anywhere" without at least an intermediate compile step for the native stuff, so it's not number two.
Finally, Perl is in competition with what MS tool? Is it the free Windows Scripting Host (that can also host PerlScript)? While you can do great things with Perl, it'll be a while before you can write video device drivers with it, so Visual C++ still has it's own niche. Visual Basic? SpecPerl is cool, but it's not as easy for the first time programmer to create a GUI as Visual Basic. Horses for courses. Perl is cool, and it can do a lot, but that doesn't mean that other tools are suddenly useless.
Damn, I meant to crank out a quick reply, and wound up writing "War and Peace"
Do anal-retentive people hyphenate 'anal retentive'?
Even if they keep it open they can do a great deal of damage by implementing MS Windows-specific functions. That would fragment Perl and introduce much confusion into even the usage of the term, "Perl". Would even the GPL protect against this kind of "embrace and extend" strategy? I think not.
FUD
There are already MS Windows specific functions in Perl. There are Mac specific functions in the Macintosh port of Perl. There are VMS specific functions in Perl. There are Unix specific functions in Perl.
ActiveState doesn't maintain Perl. ActiveState doesn't determine what goes into Perl and what doesn't. Ultimely, it is Larry who has a final say what goes into Perl and what doesn't. And Sarathy, the current Perl pumpkin. And he listens to what p5p (perl5-porters) have to say.
Microsoft can contribute a lot. If it's good, and if it benefits Perl (like a fork() for the Windows platform) it will be added to Perl, be it in the core, or as a module in the standard library. If they come with crud, it will never find its way to Perl.
People should learn to listen to what the people that work on Perl have to say about this before uttering their FUD on forums like this.
--- Abigail
I think most of us have decided that this is not really all that big a deal. This won't ever affect the Perl interpreter on my Linux box and I don't do Windows, so this will in no way affect me. The only thing to be concerned about would be modules that use proprietary extensions creeping into CPAN, and hopefully the CPAN guys will be on their guard against that.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's not a huge deal as long as they're noted as using proprietary API's. I'd be most annoyed if a general utility used them and there wasn't any warning of it. If the majority of the utilities on CPAN required proprietary API's, that would be rather annoying (And might be a potential method for MS to attack Perl.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There was a young lady from Niger
who smiled when she rode on a tiger
they came back drom the ride
with the lady inside
and the smile on the face of the tiger.
Think about it.