Re^7: Getting Fed Up with ActiveState

... and no problem for AS (that a little extra disk space won't fix).

That's far from the end of it. AS make their living by providing paid support for their distributions. What this would amount to is adding a completely new product line to their inventory, and for a small company, that's a distinctly non-trivial exercise.

They first need to ensure that they can support a GNU(?) licenced product?

Can they legally re-distribute it?
How does it affect their existing licencing agreements?
Is there any conflict between the licencing of GCC and the licencing of the other parts of the distribution?
Do they have the skills in house to support such an animal?
Strawberry Perl has a list of unresolved issues. If AS distributed a similar product, they would have to resolve those issues first. Especially if they are to expect to earn revenue from it by supporting it.
... ? (IANAL. Maybe some of these are non-issues. But I bet there is a lot more that my 30 seconds of thought haven't covered.)

Disk space is really the last consideration here.

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

Comment on Re^7: Getting Fed Up with ActiveState

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Re^8: Getting Fed Up with ActiveState by syphilis (Archbishop) on Dec 02, 2006 at 13:24 UTC
Can they legally re-distribute it? How does it affect their existing licencing agreements? Is there any conflict between the licencing of GCC and the licencing of the other parts of the distribution? Sheesh ... you've gone and lost me again :-) Aren't those precisely the issues that adamk was raising ? (Is it just me, or have we come full circle ?) Cheers, Rob	[reply]
Re^9: Getting Fed Up with ActiveState by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Dec 02, 2006 at 13:51 UTC
Um. Sorry, yes they are same issues, though seen from a slightly different perspective. That of commerce is not a crime, and neither is making a living. But the issues do go further than just the legal ones. Supporting two produces in place of one creates far more than double the problems. There are issues of interoperability. What happens if someone installs both? I've found it a problem to run two concurrent versions of AS built with the same compiler. The core of those issues is that a `perl58.dll` is produced by all 5.8.x versions which I think is done for binary compatibility reasons, but seems to cause as many conflicts as it solves. Without pretending to understand all the issues involved, they're easier to avoid than research, why not `perl5.8.x.dll`? Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal? "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^10: Getting Fed Up with ActiveState by syphilis (Archbishop) on Dec 02, 2006 at 14:22 UTC
I've found it a problem to run two concurrent versions of AS built with the same compiler I currently have AS perl builds 638, 806, 810 and 817 on this PC, along with Strawberry Perl (5.8.8) and my own MinGW-built perl 5.8.8, and I find no problem running whichsoever version I want (via the appropriate batch file). Main thing is to ensure that the installation of ActiveState Perl doesn't screw with any registry settings (path, file associations, etc.) - which is easily achieved if one installs the '.zip' version rather than the '.msi'. (Faik, it may also be easily achievable with the '.msi'.) I probably had a bit of luck wrt Strawberry Perl ... the installation of it wanted to screw with the registry, but because I was running as "user" (not "Administrator"), the attempt failed (which suited me just fine :-) With the '.zip' ActivePerl installations, one is always prompted re the stuffing-up of the registry settings ... and one (naturally) declines the invitation :-) they're easier to avoid than research Aaaaah ... I see you're a man after my own heart (so to speak), after all :-) why not perl5.8.x.dll? Good question - though it still wouldn't help when it comes to running (say) two different builds of perl 5.8.8 Cheers, Rob	[reply]