[antlr-interest] [v3] Lack of documentation

[Randall R Schulz]

On Monday 02 July 2007 15:31, scott at javadude.com wrote:
> Ter can do no wrong, eh? Fanboys... sheesh...

Well, I'd say that some of us, those whose appreciation outweighs our 
criticism by a large margin, are coming to his defense, so it does not 
end up seeming like a pure expression of his ego.

(Though he does deserve to be proud of the accomplishment. And he is 
clearly appreciative of the role the users have played in evolving the 
tool over many years. And he acknowledges that there is plenty of room 
for further improvement and continues the efforts in those directions.)

So I guess many of us (including, surely, many who are holding their 
tongues or who consider this whole thing an unwanted diversion) are 
feeling the need to defend this man and his work.


> Quite simply, I am saying the following:
>
> * I am _not_, nor did I, "demand" anything
> * The basic docs of the tool are not free

One element of the documentation, the book, is a commercial publication 
and not available free of charge. The rest, the Wiki and this forum 
(i.e., the active ANTLR user community), are free of charge, free to 
modify and extend, and open to all.


> * The tool isn't completely usable without the book

That's eminently debatable.


> * Therefore, claiming ANTLR is open source is wrong

You should be careful to distinguish free from open-source. The two are 
far from synonymous. Furthermore, the very word "free" (at least in 
English) is confusingly ambiguous and that ambiguity is quite apparent 
in the talk about free / open-source software.

<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html>. Those 
who subscribe to Stallman's views are seemingly few and you can find 
many other perspectives on the whole issue, of course, but this is an 
analysis from the person who, quite inadvertently, was instrumental in 
spurring the whole open-source movement into existence.


But one thing is beyond any reasonable debate: ANTLR is open-source. The 
rights holders (Terence ... and others?) could choose to publish this 
software with its source open and yet with a license to use it so 
restrictive that all anyone could actually do with it was study that 
source code. Clearly he (or they) have chosen to be much more generous 
than that.


> ...
>
> Why do I bother?

When you figure it out, perhaps you should tell us? Perhaps not. It's 
your call.


> -- Scott


Randall Schulz