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Four Years of Jai (2024)

(smarimccarthy.is)
166 points xixixao | 7 comments | 15 Apr 25 23:17 UTC | HN request time: 1.492s | source | bottom
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sph ◴[18 Apr 25 09:07 UTC] No.43726312[source]▶
Surprising deep and level headed analysis. Jai intrigues me a lot, but my cantankerous opinion is that I will not waste my energy learning a closed source language; this ain’t the 90s any more.

I am perfectly fine for it to remain a closed alpha while Jonathan irons out the design and enacts his vision, but I hope its source gets released or forked as free software eventually.

What I am curious about, which is how I evaluate any systems programming language, is how easy it is to write a kernel with Jai. Do I have access to an asm keyword, or can I easily link assembly files? Do I have access to the linker phase to customize the layout of the ELF file? Does it need a runtime to work? Can I disable the standard library?

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mjburgess ◴[18 Apr 25 09:14 UTC] No.43726339[source]▶
Iirc, pretty sure jblow has said he's open sourcing it. I think the rough timeline is: release game within the year, then the language (closed-source), then open source it.

Tbh, I think a lot of open source projects should consider following a similar strategy --- as soon as something's open sourced, you're now dealing with a lot of community management work which is onerous.

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xigoi ◴[18 Apr 25 09:18 UTC] No.43726361[source]▶
> as soon as something's open sourced, you're now dealing with a lot of community management work which is onerous.

This is a common misconception. You can release the source code of your software without accepting contributions.

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perching_aix ◴[18 Apr 25 09:38 UTC] No.43726436[source]▶
It's not a "misconception". Open source implying open contributions is a very common stance, if not even the mainstream stance. Source availability is for better or for worse just one aspect of open source.
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xigoi ◴[18 Apr 25 10:18 UTC] No.43726625[source]▶
Would you say that SQLite is not open source?
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1. perching_aix ◴[18 Apr 25 17:01 UTC] No.43729867[source]▶
Yes. I'd call it source available instead. Although it does have some hallmarks of open source, such as its funding.
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2. steveklabnik ◴[18 Apr 25 17:25 UTC] No.43730089[source]▶
Source available is already a well understood term that does not mean this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software

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3. perching_aix ◴[18 Apr 25 17:41 UTC] No.43730227[source]▶
Reading the preamble there, and the parapgraph after that, I find what I said to be consistent what the page is saying there.
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4. steveklabnik ◴[18 Apr 25 17:46 UTC] No.43730284{3}[source]▶
> Any software is source-available in the broad sense as long as its source code is distributed along with it, even if the user has no legal rights to use, share, modify or even compile it.

You have the legal right to use, share, modify, and compile, SQlite's source. If it were Source Available, you'd have the right to look at it, but do none of those things.

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5. perching_aix ◴[18 Apr 25 17:49 UTC] No.43730307{4}[source]▶
But not necessarily any of the other things! Big difference. Please read it again.
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6. steveklabnik ◴[18 Apr 25 18:08 UTC] No.43730473{5}[source]▶
That's your assertion, I am saying that it is not correct in the general way that people understand the terms "open source" and "source available."

I doubt we're going to come to an agreement here, though, so I'll leave it at that.

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7. johnisgood ◴[18 Apr 25 20:20 UTC] No.43731526{6}[source]▶
> even if the user has no legal rights to use, share, modify or even compile it.

Emphasis on even. It can have such rights, or not, the term may still apply regardless.