[antlr-interest] [v3] Lack of documentation
Randall R Schulz
rschulz at sonic.net
Mon Jul 2 16:03:34 PDT 2007
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
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