davidh@dent.Berkeley.EDU (David S. Harrison) (06/06/89)
This question may have already been asked, but now that there is some discussion of comparing Eiffel and C++, I think it might be useful to clarify this issue: What is the policy of Interactive Software Engineering toward other implementations of Eiffel? Suppose a group undertook the (substantial) task of producing an Eiffel front end for the GNU compiler? Legally, how would ISE react? One of the standard arguments against Eiffel is that it is a "proprietary" language. In some sense, if one develops a product in Eiffel, it's future is linked to the fortunes of ISE. Eiffel is not alone in this respect. Several other languages suffer the same onus. Very successful languages (like C, Pascal, and Fortran) give birth to many implementations supported by many different vendors. Often, a public domain "reference" implementation speeds this process. This does not preclude proprietary implementations. Indeed, most industrial users will require the robustness, maturity, and support of such products. However, I believe a public domain implementation of Eiffel would further the cause of the language greatly. As demonstrated by the wide acceptance of the X window system, this implementation need not be supremely efficient just fully functional. How does Dr. Meyer and ISE feel about such implementations? David Harrison UC Berkeley Electronics Research Lab (davidh@ic.Berkeley.EDU, ...!ucbvax!ucbcad!davidh)
bertrand@eiffel.UUCP (Bertrand Meyer) (06/07/89)
From <14377@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> by davidh@dent.Berkeley.EDU (David S. Harrison): > What is the policy of Interactive Software Engineering > toward other implementations of Eiffel? It turns out I recently posted a message on this question. Since the matter is commercial/political as much as technical I thought appropriate to post it to comp.newprod, not comp.lang.eiffel (with a brief pointer to it in the latter). The message reference is <157@eiffel.UUCP>. For anyone who just wants the gist of that message, here are the two principal sentences: Interactive believes that Eiffel is poised to become one of the major programming languages and environments for the end of the 20th century and recognizes that availability from a number of different sources is a condition for widespread success. While the Eiffel name and design remain trademarks of Interactive, and Interactive will continue to ensure that the language retains the combination of simplicity and power that has made its success, Interactive will license, under reasonable royalty conditions, the use of the name to other parties interested in developing Eiffel-based tools. [E.g. compilers, interpreters.] I hope this is clear enough. For more details read the full message and contact us directly. -- Bertrand Meyer bertrand@eiffel.com