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Re: Dropbox rant

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On Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 2:23:15 AM UTC-7, john wrote:
> In article <mJOdnfVoXsSSZ2PFnZ2dnUU7-ffNnZ2d@supernews.com>, 
> erather@forth.com says...
> > It's not so much a problem of finding a "critical mass of Forth people" 
> > to work on a particular application domain, it's a matter of finding a 
> > funding source for it. Programmers, like other people, expect to eat 
> > dinner every day. Chuck's early work was funded by NRAO. He worked on 
> > the applications they paid him to do. When he and I founded FORTH, Inc., 
> > we made a living writing the applications our customers wanted.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Elizabeth
> 
> A common mistake Elizabeth.
> 
> Take a look at free pascal,/lazarus or any number of other
> projects. 
> 
> I'm doing my thing - it may come to nothing but there's
> no third party paying me  (sad but that's life) 
>  
> All it takes is a few competent people to put their minds to finishing
> a project. Gravity sets in once something of worth is 
> demonstrated. Until then keep your head down and get on with it.

I got paid to write MFX --- there was a lot of work involved --- I wouldn't have written that for free (and I'm not enthusiastic about writing Straight Forth for free now).

> But when anyone can say that anything they do is "Forth" all you
> will ever get is chaos.

MFX was not ANS-Forth compliant --- and it was only loosely compliant with Forth-83 (I had not, at that time, actually read the Forth-83 document) --- does this mean that I don't get to call it a "Forth" cross-compiler?

MFX did not result in chaos though --- MFX continues to be used today on the RACE processor, which is used in all of the motion-control boards sold by Testra --- how many motion-control boards has Forth Inc. built and sold? The only thing that Forth Inc. sells is hot air and blue sky, which seems to me to be closer to chaos than a functioning motion-control board.

> Forth doesn't need a cute little logo - it needs an enforced trademark.
> And if it isn't compliant with the official standard it doesn't get to call
> itself Forth.

How will you enforce this? If I say that MFX is "Forth" you will apparently hit me with a big lawsuit (similar to how Elizabeth Rather tried to hit Apple Computer with a big lawsuit because they were using the name "Swift" for their language) --- or, more likely, you will just flame me on the internet.

I say that my novice-package is Forth, and that it is fully ANS-Forth compliant, but all of Elizabeth Rather's sycophants say that it contradicts the "Forth Way" and hence I don't get to call it Forth. It seems obvious to me that if you allow the Forth Inc. marketing department (Elizabeth Rather) to decide what is "Forth" and what is not, then only Forth Inc. products will be "Forth" and everything else will be a non-standard wanna-bee.

Alex McDonald has spent almost 4 years now saying that I have a "serious misunderstanding of how pointers work" because my array sort and my array definer allows arrays of structs --- I haven't yet rewritten my array sort and my array definer to be restricted to only supporting arrays of cells --- so apparently the endless flaming doesn't work as well as hoped.

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Dropbox rant Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2017-04-22 11:24 -0700
  Re: Dropbox rant Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2017-04-22 13:50 -0500
    Re: Dropbox rant Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-04-23 04:50 -0500
      Re: Dropbox rant Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-04-23 06:58 -0700
        Re: Dropbox rant foxaudioresearch@gmail.com - 2017-04-24 18:06 -0700
          Re: Dropbox rant Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-04-24 20:30 -0700
            Re: Dropbox rant foxaudioresearch@gmail.com - 2017-04-24 22:02 -0700
              Re: Dropbox rant "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-04-24 21:52 -1000
              Re: Dropbox rant Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-04-25 16:38 -0700
                Re: Dropbox rant hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-04-25 16:55 -0700
            Re: Dropbox rant Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-05-28 17:50 -0700
          Re: Dropbox rant "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-04-24 21:26 -1000
            Re: Dropbox rant john <anon@example.com> - 2017-04-25 10:22 +0100
              Re: Dropbox rant lehs <skydda.barnen@gmail.com> - 2017-04-25 04:14 -0700
              Re: Dropbox rant hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-04-25 11:25 -0700
                Re: Dropbox rant Alex <alex@rivadpm.com> - 2017-04-26 15:57 +0100
                Re: Dropbox rant Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-26 18:41 +0300
                Re: Dropbox rant Alex <alex@rivadpm.com> - 2017-04-26 17:59 +0100
                Re: Dropbox rant Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-26 21:38 +0300
                Re: Dropbox rant rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-04-26 17:48 -0400
                Re: Dropbox rant hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-04-26 12:42 -0700
                Re: Dropbox rant Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-27 06:57 +0300
                Re: Dropbox rant hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-04-26 21:20 -0700
                OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-27 07:45 +0300
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-04-27 01:31 -0400
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-27 08:43 +0300
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-04-27 01:56 -0400
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-04-27 13:17 -0700
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-04-27 16:31 -0400
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-28 07:48 +0300
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-28 10:22 +0300
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-04-30 11:09 +1000
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-04-29 21:52 -0700
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 08:24 +0300
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 01:54 -0400
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 09:04 +0300
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 02:19 -0400
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) lehs <skydda.barnen@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 00:41 -0700
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 11:01 +0300
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) lehs <skydda.barnen@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 01:24 -0700
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 03:33 -0700
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com - 2017-04-30 16:19 +0100
                Re: OT: Hugh's in need of help (was Re: Dropbox rant) Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2017-04-30 16:46 -0500
                Re: Dropbox rant "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-05-02 11:33 +1000
                Back on-topic: what attracted you to Forth?' (was: OT: Hugh's in need of help ...) Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 08:42 +0300

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