Re: Grateful Dead Marketing

[msimon@xxxxxxxxxx (M. Simon)]

I was thinking more on the lines of openess vs trade secrets.

Simon
=======================
>M. Simon writes:
> > 
> > I think many are caught between two cultures.
> > 
> > IBM vs Linux.
> 
>This is really not an issue. We don't have that many of the corporate
>culture camp here, do we? Forth is very much alive in its commericial
>embedded niche, we're talking about the OpenSource thing here however.
>OpenSource for software works, but it has to see its success for 
>hardware yet. The FPGA developements is certainly a glimpse towards that
>direction. Fine-grained reconfigurable architectures are really the
>only viable way to boost performance on the long run, so OpenSource
>model in (virtual) hardware design will become increasingly more
>important. 
>
> > I think the only way FORTH will succeed is to give it all away.
> 
>Well, Forth was free once. Sorts of, like these FIG Forth listings for 
>the Z80 which were distributed for $10 or so, and the Mountain View
>Press Forth on FishDisks for the Amiga (which the Mentifex guy is
>still so obsessed with), and the FPC for DOS, and whatnot. There 
>is a free Forth for Linux now, but why bother?
>
> > We need more free stuff. 
> 
>Yes, but who is going to write it? We need free stuff to draw a
>developer/user base to write new stuff. With the right nucleus, at the 
>right time, it would have worked. Not now, the time is past.

I'm going after the hobby machine tool market. Then move up to 'real'
machine tools.

If each of us went after a similar niche we could broaden the base.

 
> > Applications especially.

I have offered a free milling machine control program. You got something you
want to give away?

My objective: If you are thinking machine tools you are thinking FORTH.


>
>This is a hen and egg problem, which Forth has never solved. Lisp did: 
>look at XEmacs, which is very much alive since it made the leap to
>mainstream architectures, Linux included. Guess in what mailer for which
>editor I'm writing this in? Perl is booming, so does Python. Because
>of its size and simplicity, Forth is excellently suited as an embedded 
>language in an application, but it's too weird, so it never catched on 
>so Scheme, Perl and Python have taken that niche. If somebody did for 
>Forth what Stallman did for Lisp the situation wouldn't look as
>hopless as it now does. If if if.
>
>Regards,
>Eugene Leitl
>

I don't think its too late. We just have to get smarter.

Watch this space. More free stuff coming.


Simon - http://www.tefbbs.com/spacetime/index.htm