Talk:REBOL/Archive 2

Language proprietarity discussion
These facts were discovered:
 * 1) at 17:58, 7 April 2008 Kleg introduced the information, that "REBOL language was proprietary" into the article.
 * 2) as of 09:03, 18 November 2008 Kleg was unable to verify that taking into account, that the proprietary definition does not apply, since the subject is a language, not software.

In the sense of I know that I know nothing it would be interesting to establish, whether:
 * 1) A proprietary language is a language internal to an organization (...a publicly acceptable definition doesn't exist yet).
 * 2) A language publicly used can be called "proprietary".
 * 3) A language publicly modifiable can be called "proprietary".

However, the discovered facts justify me to: Peta 77.104.243.33 (talk) 09:53, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Remove the above disputed information as not verifiable.

I give. If you put back the neutral one mentioning both viewpoints I won't fight you.

Kleg (talk) 18:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Kleg. It is nice of you. But, when I wanted to start adding the text I perceived as NPOV I found this: "The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources."

Thus, an attempt to write the subject in a NPOV manner would require to use reliable sources anyway.

Summary of findings:
 * I can't cite reliable sources clarifying the meaning of the Proprietary language notion, even though it has got some meeting on the Internet.
 * Even the better sourced Proprietary software notion is currently a matter of dispute on Wikipedia . That is why I have chosen to use the undisputed notions of non-free software/free software in the Implementation section.
 * I can't cite reliable sources backing sides of the language proprietarity dispute in the case specific for the REBOL language.

Due to the lack of reliable sources I admit, that I was wrong offering the option to write the subject in a NPOV, so now the question arises, what can be done about it.

Peta 77.104.243.33 (talk) 10:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Not free software
Rebol is not free software, it is proprietory. The fact that the core is not open is pretty ovious, there are attempts at building free software implementations (oscar) etc, but they are not rebol proper, the product rebol is owned by a company and it is not free. That is why I updated the web page. Before changing it back, please discuss here.

mike James Michael DuPont (talk) 03:49, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I tried to download the source of "rebol" is it not free, there are other programs, but "rebol" is a trademark for a company and a product. see http://www.rebol.com/docs/words/wlicense.html, the other things are not rebol, but attempts at implementing them. Are there any 100% compatible implementions of rebol that can call themselves rebol? James Michael DuPont (talk) 20:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Instead of writing on my user page, please write here. James Michael DuPont (talk) 20:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate edits
The subject of the article is a programming language/data exchange language. Your statement that the language is "software" is mistaken. The fact that a programming language has one or more interpreters does not make it "software".

Your edits are inappropriate, since:


 * 1) this subject has been already discussed
 * 2) you confirmed, that your informations are your original research
 * 3) you confirmed that your informations are not Verifiable
 * 4) your statement, that a programming language is "software" is wrong
 * 5) the results of your original research are inappropriate in Wikipedia
 * 6) the fact that some intepreter(s) are proprietary software is already mentioned in the article, where appropriate

Summing all the above up, I see your editing attempts as willful infringements of Wikipedia policies. I sincerely hope, that you don't continue using such practices here. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 00:23, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll pipe in and disagree with your assertion that programming languages can't be software. They are software insofar as their official/reference implementation goes (when one exists). For instance, Python is approximately synonymous with its reference implementation. --Cyber cobra (talk) 01:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The fact, that a programming language is not its interpreter is already described in Wikipedia, and demonstrated in the article, mentioning a bunch of different interpreters of the language. Anyway, there is no point in discussing this, since it is just a mistaken result of original research. It certainly does not matter who, or how many people, consider such a result "true". Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:43, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * However you call it, the word "rebol" is owned and trademarked, you can call it what you want, but it is not free, or open. It is not a standard language, its standard is defined by who, the rebol company. I feel challenged and am going to be forced to research into this more. The point is, I tried to use this tool and was dissapointed by the wikipedia which did not clearly state that it is proprietary. If I had known that I would not have wasted my time. Wikipedia needs to be clear about things like that. Rebol is so unfree that it is not even allowed to be distributed in debian, not even as "non free software" see http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/10/msg02124.html. James Michael DuPont (talk) 05:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * "I ... am going to ... research into this more." - research at will, just stop pushing your own research here Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:50, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Confusing tag
I have tagged this article as confusing, I felt misled by it and it is not clear as to the licensing and openness of "rebol". It needs to be clear that there is no independent standard for the language (like c for example), that the name is a trademarked product, it is not free software and there are all types of restrictions on its usage, distribution and decompilation. please do not remove this until we have clearly marked and classified this article so that people can see immediately that it is not free software or an open standard. James Michael DuPont (talk) 05:23, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

As said, the results of original research are unwelcome here. The status(es) of (different) interpreter(s) is (are) already mentioned in the article. Stop continuing the policy of pushing such a research here as something "true". Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

As for the "suggestions may be found on the talk page" - that is untrue. The above user did not propose anything Verified, he is just pushing again a result of his original research. His attempts to push his "truth" using this method are still the same as before: the attempts to push somebody's original research to the article no matter what. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:52, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the "I felt misled by it". What exactly did you find misleading? Was it the "The major REBOL implementation is a proprietary[7] interpreter"? As to the "openness" word - where exactly did you find that word used misleadingly in the article? On the other hand, a statement like: "the ... language is ... software" you try to push is misleading and not even controversial, just verifiably false. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 14:57, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Lets agree on this, rebol is a trademarked product. It is also a language whos only standard body is the same implementation, and the only full implementation is not a free one. Or am I missing something here? James Michael DuPont (talk) 20:55, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Also you dont need to to do much research, the facts are very very clear on this. The only question is, is there any 100% free and compatible implementation of rebol, I would doubt it, and the "language" can change at any time, you are not even permitted to reverse engineer it. People, we need to clearly mark this thing as what it is, a mostly proprietary language and implementation. I am not saying a language is a software, where did I say that? James Michael DuPont (talk) 21:24, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

What was it you found unclear in the question which formulation in the article you found confusing? As for the above completely inaccurate informations, I verified e.g. the trademark with USPTO, and guess what? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:52, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Dear Ladislav, I am going to just ignore your negative tone, and assume good faith. So about the trademark, here are some quotes.

"REBOL/View 2.7.7.3.1 1-Jan-2010 Copyright 2000-2010 REBOL Technologies. All rights reserved. REBOL is a trademark of REBOL Technologies. WWW.REBOL.COM" http://www.rebol.com/docs/sdk/encap.html

REBOL is a trademark of REBOL Technologies. http://softinnov.org/rebol/index.shtml

REBOL is a registered trademark of REBOL Technologies. Designed by Carl Sassenrath, REBOL is the Relative Expression Based Object Language. http://www.rebol.org/art-display-article.r?article=cv6t

and dont forget the license :

http://www.rebol.com/license.html Trademarks The REBOL name and the REBOL logo are registered trademarks ® of REBOL Technologies.

You dont need to register a trademark with the uspo to claim it is yours. see Unregistered_trade_mark.

18:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

James Michael DuPont (talk) 18:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I found a trademark :

http://www.trademarkia.com/r-76063377.html The trademarks are dead according to this site, but that does not mean you can just take them. http://www.trademarkia.com/company-rebol-technologies-1020524-page-1-2 James Michael DuPont (talk) 18:52, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * You may assume whatever you like, unfortunately, I am unable to assume good faith from your side for the reasons already mentioned. Adding a couple of notes related to the above unverified informations:


 * 1) the http://www.trademarkia.com is not a IRS
 * 2) the http://softinnov.org/rebol/index.shtml is not a IRS
 * 3) the http://www.rebol.org/art-display-article.r?article=cv6t is not a IRS
 * 4) the USPTO explicitly stated the trademark was canceled
 * 5) you still did not find any Identifying reliable sources mentioning that the programming language was proprietary

Ladislav Mecir (talk) 20:15, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) the fact, that the REBOL/Core interpreter (as well as some other interpreter variants/alternatives) is proprietary is already mentioned in the article
 * 2) the above trademarks don't count as the sources for the information you want to "push as the truth", since they mention "the software and manuals", and the software is already listed in the article as proprietary
 * 3) I do not have any obligation to explain to you that the results of your own research are unwelcome, it is the policy established in the Wikipedia
 * 4) you confirmed that the article does not contain any confusing information you could list, i.e. you misused the tag


 * Dear Ladislav, I am going to continue to ignore your negative tone, and assume good faith. So, lets take a step back. I would like to suggest the following change, "The language is not publically fully specified and its official proprietary and closed implementation are developed by REBOL Technologies.". Also, I would like ask if any of the open source versions are even 100% compatible, that is what is really missing from this article. I found the cancelled record here http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4008:7s49mu.2.5 but the trademark is still in use and the main webpage of the software says that it is trademarked. All those quotes I mention are indicative of that. So, I would like to see a concise definition. look at MATLAB it is similar, it is a license=proprietary in the . That means the main product that implements it is proprietary, just like rebol. There are also free alternatives to matlab, look at this wording "There are also free open source alternatives to MATLAB, in particular GNU Octave, FreeMat, and Scilab which are intended to be mostly compatible with the MATLAB language (but not the MATLAB desktop environment)." I think we need something like that, gnu octave is also very similar but not quite matlab. The article mentions red, but on the red webpage "The syntax is almost the same as the one used by REBOL language, as the lexer (LOAD) is currently provided by REBOL during the bootstrapping phase. The REBOL syntax doesn't have a formal specification nor an exhaustive documentation, just a superficial description, but it is enough to work with." http://static.red-lang.org/red-system-specs.html, how can you call it a language without a public specification? The definition of the rebol language is embedded in the proprietary application that you are forbidden to reverse engineer, how can you possibly create a 100% compatible implementation without violating some license, what is a better definition of a proprietary and closed "language" or whatever you want to call it? See also "Boron is a scripting language similar to REBOL." http://urlan.sourceforge.net/boron/ and "ORCA is an interpreter for a REBOL-like language." http://freshmeat.net/projects/rebol-orca/ I cannot find any implementation of rebol yet.James Michael DuPont (talk) 19:20, 13 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Mdupont, IIUC your main "confusing" points are: clarification regarding the proprietary nature of the language's official implementation(s), clarification that the language is not publicly specified (at least there is no single public specification document), clarification regarding the suitability of other REBOL-inspired languages as direct REBOL replacements. I think all those points have now been sufficiently addressed, I'd therefore suggest dropping the "confusing" tag again. 184.104.126.207 (talk) 18:27, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Confusing formulations
Andreas, you are missing the point. Mdupont actually did not find anything he could list as confusing, as he actually confirmed. The proprietarity of the REBOL/Core interpreter and other implementations was described in the article before he misused the "Confusing" tag. After he made his edits, the tag became appropriate, though, since:
 * 1) The "Programming language" infobox confuses the language and the interpreter now.
 * 2) A mailing list message is not a IRS. Anybody, including Mdupont could produce any number of information sources of that kind stating whatever they care to post.
 * 3) "The language (especially its syntax) has no public specification" - is wrong, since REBOL: The Official Guide. McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. ISBN 007212279X contains a publicly available syntax specification.
 * 4) The formulation "...only official ... implementation" is unsourced and incorrect. Yes, the implementation mentioned is "the official ... implementation", but not "the only official ... implementation".
 * 5) The formulation "cannot be compiled without REBOL being installed" confuses the language and its interpreter. The formulation can be be corrected, though: "cannot be compiled without having a REBOL interpreter installed".
 * 6) The formulation "which is currently bootstrapped using REBOL and therefore needs REBOL to run" is again confusing the interpreter and the language. Can be corrected as follows: "which is currently bootstrapped using a REBOL interpreter and therefore needs a REBOL interpreter to run"Ladislav Mecir (talk) 15:19, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Secondary and Primary Sources
I wonder if it is legitimate to base this article based on primary sources, meaning the main webpage and authors statements, I think we should remove things that are based on the main webpage and only use secondary neutral sources, what do you think? James Michael DuPont (talk) 17:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

"...base this article based..." - what exactly does that formulation mean? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:09, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Regarding "primary sources, meaning ... and authors statements":
 * 1) The only author's statement used in the article describes REBOL dialects as the most notable property of the language according to the designer's opinion
 * 2) The source of the quote is a reliable secondary source (it is an article published by an independent source - Dr. Dobb's Journal - with a reliable publishing process) Ladislav Mecir (talk) 01:11, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the "we should remove things that are based on the main webpage": Checking the references to the official webpage I found out, that there are two, both of them referring to the license to the REBOL/Core and REBOL/View interpreters. Since these may indeed be considered "primary sources" we may consider removing the statements mentioning the license properties ("proprietary etc.") from the article. That does not look like a problem, taking into account, that the article shall describe the language, not the interpreter(s).Ladislav Mecir (talk) 01:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * My comment Well first of all, I would like to thank you for the improvements on the licensing terms, I am basically happy with that. Ok, and lets look at the sources, there are a number of facts presented without sources. Should I tag them with cite? Here are some of the Unsourced sections, The History table, the Semantics and Syntax section are poorly sourced. The Infobox has unsourced sections. Thanks, James Michael DuPont (talk) 04:14, 1 June 2011 (UTC)


 * "there are a number of facts presented without sources. Should I tag them with cite?" - of course not, "only the facts challenged, or likely to be challenged" (Verifiability) need explicit attribution in form of inline citation Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Rebol team of developers active
Surely it is time to say that Red/System exists as the first step to replace Rebol because work on Rebol stopped in ... and state the date Carl went silent. The month and year will do.

Apache announces when projects go into the 'attic' and Apache Jakarta even announced it's own retirement on its own project page. So there is ample precedent - at least in the open software field. Apache posts warnings that projects are inactive ( as is Jelly executable XML on this date) and sourceforge.net shows activity.

All that can be said of Rebol is that Sassenrath's two blogs went silent after the posts of Mar 28, 2011 for Rebol and Feb 20, 2011 for Rebol 3.0

Added July 5, 2012

Rebol developers using existing R3 alpha can be seen at http://www.rebol.org/aga-groups-index.r?world=r4wp

For some time there was an "Entwicklung" link visible at saphirion.com ( formerly Robert Muensch Associates ?) mapped to ./development

None of the above appears to involve updates to the non-open-source or proprietary Rebol codebase for Rebol2 or the Rebol3 alpha.

G. Robert Shiplett 22:26, 25 June 2012 (UTC)