Re: Franz & CLIM

[Scott_Fahlman@SEF-PMAX.SLISP.CS.CMU.EDU]

Rob,

Too bad we messed up.  Was he claiming that the comparison was unfair, or
just that we had mentioned them at all?  (It might well be unfair by now --
I don't know if we have run benchmarks on their latest releases.)

Franz is apparently the biggest trouble-maker in the CLIM negotiations, so
we have to handle this carefully.  Better point him to me (office phone:
412 268-2575), and tell him that I'm a lot easier to reach by E-mail than
any other way.

The official story, for public release, is that we believe that the Common
Lisp world would benefit enormously from having a good quality GUI that is
a de facto standard for all major implementations.  We think that CLIM is
the best candidate -- perhaps the only real candidate -- to be such a
standard, but it won't happen unless 

(a) the various companies involved can agree on a CLIM 2 definition
and can agree upon the legal status of the existing code, and

(b) CLIM is available free or very cheap, without a lot of licensing
hassles, to users of free Common Lisp systems like ours.

If (b) doesn't happen, there will be separate standards for the commercial
and free user communities, and the last thing Common Lisp needs is a schism
like that.  We're talking to various groups about how to make this happen,
but nothign is settled so far.

... and that's about all we want to say right now.

-- Scott