so what happens with PB...

[Rinzwind]

when Fred is hit by lightning and travels to higher spheres? It seems that 'rival' PowerBasic is death, just like it's creator. He was the only one who apparently knew how it all worked and was patched together. This is a huge risk in these kind of projects and the creator should be glad if and make sure that he can share low level coding responsibilities with other people. Also an open minded vision is important. It seems Fred is the only one who decides what road PureBasic will take. So are there any measures taken to prevent PureBasic from relying entirely on 1 person?

[wilbert]

The subject has come up before and the answer (if I remember correctly) was that if no one is able to maintain PureBasic anymore, it would become open source.

[Ferdinand]

but..PureBasic becoming open source does not guarantee any (well-organised) maintenance or development group magically appearing and keeping the whole project going, especially if there is not much of a financial incentive;
unfortunately many basic compilers / interpreters in the past relied mostly on one owner-developer and when (s)he was not interested anymore or got ill, etc., the project (slowly) got obsolete

[wilbert]

There's also lots of software developed by a team that's no longer supported.
For example QuickBasic.

[Thorium]

but..PureBasic becoming open source does not guarantee any (well-organised) maintenance or development group magically appearing and keeping the whole project going, especially if there is not much of a financial incentive;

You never have a guarantee a software will be supported indefinitely. This also applys to big projects of big companys. The problem with Basic dialects is that they are not following a language standard. You can't just switch the compiler out like you can with C or C++, which are standardized.

If you choose to use a non standard programming language you have to be prepared that this language will become obsolete at some point. Might be in 1 year, might be in 10 yeard, might be in 100 years. Doesnt matters, if the software fits your needs now, it's fine.
If it's no longer supported it does not stop to work suddenly. You will have a lot of time to adapt to a new software.

[Dude]

are there any measures taken to prevent PureBasic from relying entirely on 1 person?

One person? The official team is five people:

Fred, the lead developer/founder.
Timo (Fr34k) who [...] mainly works on the libraries, debugger and IDE.
Comtois who has done almost all the new 3D related features found in the last PB version.
Gatean (Polo) who has kindly integrated his nice Form Designer in the PureBasic package, and maintain it.
G-Rom who do some additional 3D coding.

Timo would definitely be able to take the lead if something happened to Fred.

[Rinzwind]

I know PB has more people working on the 'ecosystem', but I think the compilers guts is only known by Fred. Make sure that knowledge is shared with people who know about low level bits and bytes in the Windows/Mac/Linux dungeon. Purebasics team should make sure it will be available for ages; something that will stay no matter what. Maybe go to a open source development structure, just like LiveCode did recently (a completely different kind of animal, but still an programming language).

[wilbert]

I know PB has more people working on the 'ecosystem', but I think the compilers guts is only known by Fred. Make sure that knowledge is shared with people who know about low level bits and bytes in the Windows/Mac/Linux dungeon. Purebasics team should make sure it will be available for ages; something that will stay no matter what. Maybe go to a open source development structure, just like LiveCode did recently (a completely different kind of animal, but still an programming language).

OpenSource means no income. Why would Fred want to do that.
I didn't know LiveCode but looked it up. They raised half a million pounds via KickStarter to make it open source.

Besides that, lets's be honest. The majority of PB developers are probably in the same situation themselves. They don't want their commercial projects to be open source and when something happens to them, there's no one to provide support or continue development.

[Dude]

I think the compilers guts is only known by Fred

And you know this, how? You don't. You're just assuming.

Purebasics team should make sure it will be available for ages; something that will stay no matter what.

Nothing lasts forever. However, PureBasic has been around longer than Microsoft Visual Basic! Did you know that?

People have been predicting PureBasic's death for 12 years now, but it's still alive and kicking.

Read some of their quotes, and relax: http://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtop ... =7&t=45773

[Rinzwind]

Open source does not mean no income. The LiveCode example has different type of licenses. If you want to create commercial closed source apps you will need a commercial license. They still sell it on a subscription based model (before it was a buy one version once, use forever). You can also differentiate between versions. The more people are involved with improving and supporting the product, the more change it will stay around and will get better and better.

The creators should take a good look what is happening with powerbasic... It is lost even if there was a "team" behind it, too much responsibility lied with and dependability on one person.

[Tenaja]

Open source does not mean no income.

Aside from anecdotal stories, it does mean no income. Nobody makes money on open source software unless they will the open source lottery. It is all random, and extremely rare.

[Fred]

I already thought about it, and if sometimes bad happen to me (well, I don't hope so, crossed fingers ! ), the project will be transfered to someone else, who will know what to do. It's a legitimate question, and all has been taken care of, so you can safely plan your future projects with it !

[Fangbeast]

I already thought about it, and if sometimes bad happen to me

Fred, I told you before. If you play around with Idle's strangely abused sheep, bad thing will happen to you. You know what he gets up to with those distorted creatures in his lair!!

[marc_256]

I already thought about it, and if sometimes bad happen to me (well, I don't hope so, crossed fingers ! ), the project will be transfered to someone else, who will know what to do. It's a legitimate question, and all has been taken care of, so you can safely plan your future projects with it !

Well, this is good to know, so I can sleep a little bit better.
after several years of development now...

marc,

[Dude]

Anyway, the product won't die just because a human does. It'll still run. Bugs can be worked-around. People still use Visual Basic with no support or updates from Microsoft.