Imagine a world in which HyperCard had been open sourced 20 years ago?

[simplsol at aol.com]

Perhaps:
1. HyperTalk is never converted from an interpreted language to a 
compiled one - no one wants to commit the resources
2. Five different developers rewrite the HC engine to support five 
different ways of adding color
3. Businesses refuse to touch HC because there are 20 different 
versions (HC - Berkeley, HC - SD, etc.)
4. Of the 20 versions of HC, 15 are "vaporware"
5. HC spawns 30 incompatible clones
6. All of the clones combined have a 2% market share (compared to VB, 
the "Standard RAD")
7. Since no one was making money on it, no "serious" development was 
done for the last 19 years
Paul Looney

-----Original Message-----
From: David Bovill <david at openpartnership.net>
To: How to use Revolution <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
Sent: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 3:40 am
Subject: Imagine a world in which HyperCard had been open sourced 20 
years ago?
How would the world of software languages that we know of now be 
different? 
 
Perhaps: 
  1. Visual Basic would not have had the success that it did as 

  companies re-hacked HyperTalk to fit their business needs 

  2. We'd have got colour and video and object orientation well ahead 
of 

  the competition 

  3. MetaCard would have been born as an Open Source company based 

  around customising the engine for larger corporations 

  4. RunRev would have produced the RevIde and repackaged it for a new 

  market - without the same start-up costs 

  5. Others Galaxies would have been produced 

  6. We'd have got these benefits cheaper, they would have got more 

  customers 

  7. Businesses would be making money with the engine and there would 
be 

  many many such businesses 
 

Have some fun and picture it - dream or nightmare? It's a serious 
question, 

for those thinking of investing their skills. 

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