Why not make PureBasic Open Source ?

[thommy.oster]

Hi,

I started programming with PureBasic back in high school, and it is definetly one reason, I am now studying Computer Science and hopefully get my Master's degree in 2 years.
PureBasic is a very good language for absolute beginners in my opinion and it is a shame, that it is not Open Source.

My Problem is not the 70 bugs for lifetime support (how do you make money out of that anyway?), but I think PureBasic being closed source, makes it unreachable for Linux Distributions and generally becoming some kind of standard language. I bet if PureBasic would be Open, the community would grow and we could get the money they making right now just from donations.

So, is there any particular reason I am missing? I can't imagine Fred etc living from PB and by opening, I think they would have less work because more eyes see more mistakes.

regards

T (who is besides Java, PHP and C++ still a big fan of how the things work in PB)

[dobro]

open source, will be good way to kill purebasic!
he'll have lots of different versions ..

purebasic would a gas plant!
with full modules, mismatched ....

finally .. I believe

I prefer a team and one captain

instead of , many captains and no team

[moogle]

So, is there any particular reason I am missing? I can't imagine Fred etc living from PB and by opening, I think they would have less work because more eyes see more mistakes

I think Fred and the team have other day jobs they do as well as PureBasic.

Anyway I suppose if some parts were open source it'd be nice so users could improve on it or fix bugs.


I also wish it would become more widespread and standard but I don't think the majority of programmmers will want to change their style to use purebasic. It has to be way better than the other languages to become more popular.

Right now it's good for beginners/intermediate/hobby users and for those who like to make prototype programs before creating it from scratch in C\C++ or any other high level language.
You can still make decent programs with it but when you want extra functionality you either have to find other libraries/code to use and they're always at least in C\C++.

Hopefully we get more and more updates and the different platforms balance out because right now it seems Windows PB > Linux PB > Mac PB in functionality

[thommy.oster]

open source, will be good way to kill purebasic!
he'll have lots of different versions [..]
I prefer a team and one captain

instead of full of captains and no team

Open Source does not mean, that Fred and his team discontinue providing a clean and "original" pure basic. It is like with the kernel, sure, there are several forks etc, but everyone orients himselv on Linus' branch and so could Fred keep his Pure Basic as it is. And if someone has a great Idea, he can implement it and if it is good enough for Fred, he can include it in his version.

[dobro]

if someone has a great Idea, he can implement it and if it is good enough for Fred, he can include it in his version.

I wanted this for some users library

[moogle]

it would be nice if some basic functions were open sourced (maybe the string, math and network library) so that they could be improved upon.

I would love for the Network library to be able to listen on a specific interface ie. 127.0.0.1:6001 and 192.168.1.100:7888
Obv stuff like this is possible if you use API but if we could see the internals then we could implement our own to work with the PB network library

[idle]

Don't think that would really help open sourcing PB's compiler.
It'd be better to start a new compiler project targeting llvm or gcc and then have users contribute libraries to it.

[luis]

"Why not make PureBasic Open Source ?"

Because its author decided to not make it so. The reasons are irrelevant, it's his work.

[skywalk]

I've never understood why the IDE, VD and Help Documentation are not Open Source?
Why wait for customizations and help updates to be implemented, when you can jump in and fix it directly?
The VD, while not high on my use list, is not in the best shape.
The IDE and VD sources should be used to highlight PB's capabilities.

[rsts]

I see all too many (most) open source projects with much less support and coordination than PureBasic.

[Kukulkan]

Please don't make it Open Source as long as the developers are still maintaining the product. This should be only an option if the development completely stucks.

I, personally, would like to see more agressive marketing, advertising and selling of PB (better homepage, some ads) to allow Fred and Team to live from licences. Maybe the current licence model is also to cheap. Why not paying seperately for Win/Lin/Mac version? And why not offering major upgrades only for a small upgrade fee like all the others? And some free "basic" version that allows simple projects to compile?

Only some thoughts, but I think they will stay wishes...

Kukulkan

[DarkDragon]

So, is there any particular reason I am missing? I can't imagine Fred etc living from PB

Fred had a time where he fully lived from PB.

[MachineCode]

I've never understood why the IDE, VD and Help Documentation are not Open Source?

The IDE was open-source for a while. Then some idiot used it to make an IDE for a competing BASIC. So, back to closed-source, and rightly so.

[Danilo]

I've never understood why the IDE, VD and Help Documentation are not Open Source?

The IDE was open-source for a while. Then some idiot used it to make an IDE for a competing BASIC. So, back to closed-source, and rightly so.

That's the freedom of open source, i wouldn't call him an idiot. You can not want all but give nothing.

The (very simple) PureBasic Editor had an advantage from being OSS too:
It was modified and pimped by users to become better and grow to an IDE.
Fred got the money after the users made parts of his product better, so it was of benefit for all people here.

The answer to the original question is: Why not make Photoshop and Visual Studio Open Source?

It's the decision of a company to make its products and intellectual property open source,
it is not a question for the users, isn't it?

[jesperbrannmark]

I dont like open source myself... its really not that I dislike either, but its not for me.
But one thing that could really benefit from being opensource is the visual designer. Is is a really good foundation, but noone of the team has the energy on updating it - and if I could I would really help out to make a visual designer that is more fluent with the code it makes (make a button, click on the ever - pop up with the function that does that etc)
Anyhow. Purebasic is great and I have full respect of the guys and their decisions. I would like to pay more for PB but havn't got a reply to my message about donating.. that would feel really good.