Script Limits and the Open Sourcing IDE

[David Bovill]

On Thu, 2003-08-07 at 06:23, Mark Talluto wrote:
> >
> Hi Jeanne,
> 
> I dropped him a line earlier today.  I am taking advantage of his 
> invitation to discuss this.  Talking about his openly may be helpful.  
> We can figure out ways to live without this in the event this is going 
> to happen.
> 
> Best regards,
> Mark Talluto

OK - I agree a little open talk on this might help. I too have sent
Kevin an detailed email on this point because dropping this feature
pretty well destroys a project that I have invested several months work
into.

The product was an open source educational product - designed to teach
internet programming. Giving "students" the opportunity to programme 10
lines of code was pretty vital to the product and the marketing. 

As there would have been a free downloadable version it would have
introduced a lot of new people to the benefits of coding in
Metatalk/TranScript.

<snip>

> I know that this limitation will cause of to rewrite sections some of 
> my existing products.  I don't see why this limitation must be imposed. 
....
> Not sure if I am explaining this in enough detail...but let me 
> stress that losing this feature will be a big bummer.
> 
</snip>

To be fair I think RunRev had good reasons to do this given before the
acquisition (see below)...

> We all agreed not to create a competing product for MC and Rev when we
> bought the software.  It is in the EUA.  
> 

Not quite true. MC allowed you to create whatever IDE you liked. RunRev
took advantage of this, but there was always the option of producing
other types of IDE that could have competed with RunRev using MC.

Now with control over the engine and future licencing I don't see the
need to be so concerned.

Here is the rub - for me the fact that Scott got agreement to open
source the existing MC front end (which is a great opportunity for the
community) is effectively neutralised by removing the 10 line script
limit:

        What use is an open source IDE for Revolution if those users
        most attracted to it - students and open source programmers
        preffering a minimal interface for coding - can't use it to do
        even basic coding?


I'd urge anyone interested in retaining and developing a:


	1) Minimal MC type front end to Revolution

	2) An open source strategy for metatalk / revolution code libraries

	3) Extending interest in metatalk / transcript to open source
developers and students.

	4) Or just retaining the elegant ability to update the scripts of
simple objects in their distributions.


...to see if we can't collectively brainstorm to develop a viable open
source strategy for the MC front end. 
        
My feeling is that there is a small but highly motivated team of long
term MC coders, who would be interested in contributing. The revolution
(pun intented) can only benefit by harnessing these skills and extending
them out to the wider open source community.

But there is no point any of us doing this without the active support of
Kevin/Scott and the team. My view is that removing the 10 line script
limit undermines rather than supports this.Working together I think we
can thrash out a deal that protects RunRev's business model, while
retaining a viable open source strategy.