what's wrong with REBOL?

[Jeff Epler]

For a language to be "right" for me, it must satisfy a lot of qualities.

One of them is some notion of freedom.  For instance, will I be left
high and dry if I want to use this language on some new device or
system architecture?  (For instance, when I start buying Itanium or
Opteron servers to replace my racks of decrepit Xeons..)

Here are two ways I can be pretty sure this won't happen:
* Can I have the source code? (C, C++, Python, Perl)  I'll port it to
  my new platform.
* Is there already a standard with multiple working implementations?
  (C, C++, C#, Python)  This multiplies the chances that some
  implementation will be ported to my new platform.

As far as I can tell, the Rebol folks don't include source code with any
of their licensing options (SDK, etc), and it doesn't look like their
documentation gives enough information for a third-party to write their
own implementation either.

Of course, for those who already rely on single-source software with no
source-code availability (*cough*microsoft*cough*), maybe this isn't
such a big deal.  But having been prevented from upgrading to a modern
version of a compiler by a no-source third-party C++ library recently, 
I don't relish the idea of being reduced to begging for a recompiled
version of commercial software again.

Jeff