Guido at Google

[Graham Fawcett]

Cameron Laird wrote:
> In article <1135239900.225499.263300 at g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>  <bonono at gmail.com> wrote:
>  			.
> >Well, this may be the CPython way of open source but I don't know if
> >that is "Open source" in general. Another way is that if someone(or
> >group) don't like the current state of a project, they fork. I don't
> >know if that is possible in the context of python, and programming
> >language in general. Can it still be called python ?
> 			.
> While I don't understand the question, it might be pertinent to
> observe that, among open-source development projects, Python is
> unusual for the *large* number of "forks" or alternative imple-
> mentations it has supported through the years <URL:
> http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.python/python_varieties.html >.

...though not a lot of forks/variations that have persisted past the
early-alpha phase. Many of those projects are stale or defunct, alas.

Personally, I'd point out Scheme as an "open" HLL with a vast number of
implementations. But I guess it helps when the language itself is a
spec and there's no canonical implementation.

This all reminds me of one my favourite quotes from python-list of
yore:

    <Thaddeus Olczyk> So python will fork if ActiveState starts
    polluting it?

    <Brian Quinlan> I find it more relevant to speculate on whether
    Python would fork if the merpeople start invading our cities
    riding on the backs of giant king crabs. [1]

Merry _('Christmas') to all,
Graham

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[1] http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2001-April/037142.html