Comment by fdr
15 years ago
The license is so counterproductive that I, not being a license warrior, am very nearly convinced that it could destroy virtually any project:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ibqp1/meet_the_...
It's one thing if one doesn't want a collaborative project, but that goes against (at least the stated) goals listed on the license page.
Like Java, Shen is a The Right Thing vs. Worse is Better language. I think the concerns expressed in in the Reddit discussion are overblown, you have to assume (or not) a certain degree of good faith on the part of those responsible for maintaining the language's correctness.
Sure, the execution of the license is vague (and note we're talking about concerns for people doing ports, not those using a blessed port), but don't forget how explicit Sun's Java license was and how they simply refused to play ball with Apache.
And some of the explicit concerns (e.g. 10 vs. 12 bytes per int) are just plain silly, given that there are blessed existing and in progress ports to several versions of Scheme and to Javascript.