From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id PAA19865; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:52:49 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA19529 for ; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:52:48 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from mailg.telia.com (mailg.telia.com [194.22.194.26]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with ESMTP id f9ODqlj27498 for ; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:52:47 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from d1o849.telia.com (d1o849.telia.com [213.66.248.241]) by mailg.telia.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id f9ODqlu22403; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:52:47 +0200 (CEST) Received: from gateway (h40n2fls34o849.telia.com [217.208.235.40]) by d1o849.telia.com (8.10.2/8.10.1) with SMTP id f9ODqka21583; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:52:46 +0200 (CEST) From: "Mattias Waldau" To: "Rolf Wester" , Subject: RE: [Caml-list] Whither the Caml Consortium? Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:52:46 +0200 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 In-Reply-To: <3BD58FBC.24509.6BA76944@localhost> Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk It is very difficult to get enough money to be able to support, maintain and sell a programming language. Just see how difficult it is for ML companies (2 failed attempts) and Lisp. (Lisp companies typically charge $5000 and upwards per developer). (SICStus Prolog actually lives on licenses and it works.) That means that when Inria stops to support Ocaml, the language will most likely die unless the open source community takes over. The code the Ocaml is reasonable documentet which makes it possible to maintain it. Regarding a killer-application in Ocaml to show that Ocaml is best, we have to find a program that MANY people need. Just look how difficult it is to create a good email program for Linux (Evolution is at last getting ready). Such an application could be built using Ocaml instead. It would work, no buffer overuns would reduce the number of security glitches. The only problem is that almost all killer application has graphical user interfaces, and I still haven't seen a good looking Ocaml-program (any pointers?). Unison could be a killer application, but it lacks all user friendliness. However, not so many people need syncronization. /mattias P.s. As a CTO for a programming company, I would say that $500-1000 per developer and year would be a resonable licensing fee. ------------------- Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr