Shen: The future direction

http://www.shenlanguage.org/babel/babel.htm

by shaunxcode • 14 years ago

40 6 14 years ago

shenlanguage.org

Phlogistique• 14 years ago

> we have a liberal and sound license

No you don't.

andrewcooke• 14 years ago

can you expand? it - http://www.shenlanguage.org/license.html - seems to be intended to let anyone use the language while keeping the language itself under the control off the authors. is that correct? if so, what's the problem?

tikhonj2• 14 years ago

I think "liberal" should imply at least open source. After reading the license, it seems I can't incorporate part of the Shen compiler in my own project or add features to it. While the author presents his reasons for these limits, and they may be reasonable, I don't think this makes the license "liberal". Or rather, it's only liberal relative to proprietary licenses; but this is like saying that Chinese government is "liberal" because it affords so many more freedoms than a complete dictatorship.

As far as "sound" goes, it's hard to tell since I'm not a lawyer and I don't think it was ever tested in court. Assuming the license was written by a competent lawyer familiar with the relevant law, it is probably decently sound. If it was not written (or at least edited) by a good lawyer, it becomes somewhat suspect.

JoshTriplett• 14 years ago

Not even close to an Open Source license, so calling it "liberal and sound" seems quite misleading. Permits only a very narrow class of derived works ("improving performance, correcting an error, or porting to a new platform"). Requires compliance with "the latest standards for Shen", not just the standard at the time, which makes for a moving target and an effectively revocable license. Cannot incorporate into anything not named "Shen".

The authors can of course choose any license they like, but given the widespread availability of languages with Open Source implementations, I see no reason to give a second look to a language both proprietary and obscure.

pranjalv123• 14 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the recent Oracle v. Google lawsuit determine that language specifications aren't copyrightable?

Shen: The future direction

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