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Red: A programming language inspired by REBOL

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95 points Levitating | 2 comments | 31 Aug 25 03:14 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bronlund ◴[31 Aug 25 11:37 UTC] No.45082404[source]▶
I remember being really impressed by REBOL, I thought it was a really cool language and I did make some small tools with it. To bad greed ruined it for everybody.
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fuzztester ◴[31 Aug 25 13:11 UTC] No.45082891[source]▶
how did greed ruin it?

I had tried it out a bit earlier, but don't remember reading anything about it getting ruined.

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bronlund ◴[31 Aug 25 18:16 UTC] No.45085512[source]▶
As I remember it; it was free for personal use, but if you were to use it commercially, you had to pay a license cost. There also was a server version which could set you back thousands of dollars. If you wanted to export the REBOL API which you could create using the REBOL SDK to users, you needed a separate distribution license. It was a mess. When REBOL finally went open source in 2012, it was too late, everyone had moved on.
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1. praptak ◴[31 Aug 25 18:43 UTC] No.45085803[source]▶
I sure hope that merely not being free, for all uses, forever, would be enough to tank it. Not to hate on Rebol specifically nor people wanting to make money off their work in general but a non-free language is just unacceptable.
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2. bronlund ◴[31 Aug 25 19:13 UTC] No.45086112[source]▶
I think it was more about it not being worth the money. REBOL was clever and all, but when you do compete with free stuff, you can't just set whatever price you like - it has to make sense for the customer.