Robert Uhl  <eadmund42@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Second, I must state that I am unconvinced that such and effort made
| today would be so expensive and painful--at least, were it limited to
| the free software community.  Would the authors of clisp, SBCL & CMUCL
| (and ACL?) really be so unamenable to standardisation as the vendors of
| proprietary Lisps?
+---------------

Consider the phrase: "Cost of participation." That is, the cost of
attending (most) meetings; the lost opportunity cost while working
on [or even just thinking about] the standardization effort *instead*
of whatever normally they do for money; etc. Participation in *any*
kind of standards activity is ex-PEN-sive. Where does "the free
software community" (whoever that is) get the money to do so?

I'm suspecy that Kent can probably relate some anecdote(s) about
how participation costs skewed the ANSI X3J13 process...


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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