Is the command line the only way to free software?

[richard.pieri-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org (Richard Pieri)]

On Mar 18, 2010, at 12:57 PM, Lim, Seung Chan wrote:
> 
> Please enlighten me if I'm missing something. I'm very curious. Is
> there perhaps a subtle yet important difference? Many times these
> details make or break something...

More likely something that I'm missing.  I don't know enough about the NoSQL "movement" to say for sure.

> That's really odd that Newton dev team didn't resolve the ease-of-use
> problem with regards to working with the data store. Did they run out
> of time / money? Do you know what made is so difficult to interact
> with the data in Newtonscript?

It's the nature of the model.  Try stuffing a formatted resume into a single string.  That should give you an idea of the problem.  Version 2.0 of the OS added a binary block type that made it easier to work with data like that.

> That's a very interesting insight! Were you in the team? Being the
> young and naive person that I am, I would like to make sure that we
> invent that future as soon as possible! :) Whatever the Newton team
> worked on sounds like something that should go into the Computer
> Science History text book!

Nope.  I was just a devoted Newton user.

> Do you have particular thoughts on use and security that you're thinking of?

No... and that's largely because I have the filesystem-based security model ground into my brane.

--Rich P.