[Openmcl-devel] user submissions and open-sourceness

[Hamilton Link]

I'm not affiliated with Clozure.  I've worked with mcl/openmcl/ccl for 
most of ten years, have spent modest amounts of time scrounging around 
in the code, have read all the implementation docs a couple times over, 
and such.  I have submitted bug fixes to a few things (tcp streams iirc, 
some GUI stuff... maybe more).  I implemented the cocoa inspector and 
the OpenGL demo and tested out the early hemlock stuff a fair amount, 
and now and then I've helped out rsynching the server or running this or 
that CLTL2 regression test suite.

I'd pretty much never try porting ccl to a new platform or debugging a 
brand new port.

I think one reason ccl works as well as it does is because although it 
is open source, there are extremely knowledgeable, dedicated people who 
spend a lot of time maintaining and supporting it.  SVN, Apache, and 
many other "open source" projects have a similar model dividing the 
world into gurus and non-gurus, and I think it works well because users 
get a quality product and as new gurus arise they are generally 
welcomed... and when non-gurus suggest a patch it gets sanity checked 
and incorporated in an orderly fashion.

My point is... I don't think anyone can reasonably expect useada.u to 
jump in and work on a 32-bit x86 port (or <user> to jump in and work on 
<major rewrite>).  It's silly to suggest it.  But I would also encourage 
everyone to contribute to ccl in whatever capacity they feel able.  Such 
help has always been welcomed, whether it has been running their 
application in multiple versions of ccl, porting and testing lisp 
libraries, reporting bugs and problems while developing in lisp, helping 
debug or submitting probable fixes, updating or editing documentation, 
or developing new functionality for ccl.

thanks,
hamilton


Erik Huelsmann wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 9:17 PM,  <p2.edoc at googlemail.com> wrote:
>   
>> At 3:24 PM +0200 08/06/16, Erik Huelsmann wrote:
>>     
>>> On 6/16/08, useada.u <useada.u at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>       
>>>>  Hello,all!
>>>>
>>>>  When can i use ccl on x86 32bit system?
>>>>         
>>>>  waiting....
>>>>         
>>>  Why wait? This is Open Source: everybody scratches his own itch; if
>>> your itch is ccl on x86, then get the sources and start hacking! It's
>>> the best way to make sure "as soon as it's ready" will materialize.
>>>       
>> Well CLozure CL seems rather the possession of Clozure Associates. I rather
>> hope that a contribs repository may appear one day for outsiders to use, but
>> for now it is not obvious that much input other than bug reporting has a
>> place or is welcome by Clozure who in effect "own" CCL regardless of
>> whatever Open Source or copyright legalities apply.
>>
>> I'm not suggesting that it should be other than it is, just that the CCL
>> entity itself does not seem open to outside contributions.  So I presume our
>> extension will be add-ons that we will need to maintain and evolve in order
>> to keep abreast of CCL changes.
>>     
>
> Well, sending this mail in public instead of to me could have fired
> the discussion instead of leaving the questions unanswered...
>
> However, I see little use to declaring something open source if you're
> not open to contributions.... Maybe Clozure Associates doesn't expect
> any because nobody came forward yet??? Ofcourse, looking at your
> reaction, this now may have turned into a self-fulfilling prophesy...
>
> Bye,
>
> Erik.
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