Re: [Axiom-developer] Aldor

[Martin Baker]

On Sunday 16 Oct 2011 21:27:41 Ralf Hemmecke wrote:
> Better it is free and there is a little chance that some day someone
> picks it up) than non-free and unmaintained.

I don't understand the technical issues and I agree that, in most cases, 
choice is a good thing.

However, in the case of pan-axiom there already seems to be far too much 
choice (i.e. fragmentation). What would be the effect of making Aldor free? 
Would each of the 3 lead developers get behind it and abandon their current 
projects or would it cause yet more fragmentation and complexity?

Given the small number of active developers then the current level of 
duplication already seems absolutely mad, 3 lots of release cycles, 3 lots of 
documentation (or lack of it), 3 email lists, and so on. Also all the time 
that is wasted translating from one flavor to another, if only all this wasted 
effort could have been spent adding Aldor-like features to Axiom.

I think this situation must be putting off potential new Axiom users, I would 
be more encouraged to use and contribute to a project if it had a big and 
active community rather than choose between 3 (or presumably 4 if Aldor were 
free) small projects.

Each of the 3 lead developers seems to have an ideology and a long term plan 
to get more users, I hope it works but it seems far from certain? At the 
moment, if any of the lead developers stopped working on their project I can't 
see how their code would survive as an active project. I fear for the long 
term survival of the whole pan-Axiom project.

I haven't put the level of commitment into Axiom that you guys have but I do 
strongly value pan-Axiom and appreciate all the work that has gone into it. I 
guess I don't have much influence but I would like to use any influence that I 
do have to ask you to lobby for less fragmentation rather than more 
fragmentation.

Martin