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by sidkshatriya 774 days ago
Heard some positive things about Mojo. But my curiousity waned after I learnt it was not open source currently.

In 2024 why should I be interested in a language that is not open source ? Perhaps I'm missing something ?

2 comments

The standard library is open source, you can find it here: https://github.com/modularml/mojo/tree/nightly/stdlib

We'll be opening up more over time - stay tuned!

Just in case you're in the know:

I was really really close to trying to spin up something at work using the Max Engine. However, I see that it collects telemetry [1], and we can't really allow that. Do you know if there are plans to be able to turn this entirely off at some point?

It's nice to know if I should keep it on my radar, or if I can't consider it without changing jobs :)

[1]: https://docs.modular.com/engine/faq#does-the-max-sdk-collect...

Please reach out to us to talk through it, I'm sure there's a way to work it out.
There’s nothing bad about telemetry per se. In fact it should be considered bad to not be paying attention to how anything you build works in the real world.

(Then comes Meta c.s. and everyone rightly distrusts anything reported back from their computer)

This just to say, that yes, the majority of companies cannot be trusted, but there’s still good guys out there collecting useful metrics completely devoid of secondary malicious purposes.

Intentions be damned. Some industries take IP/security very seriously (eg regulated medical). Tools which phone home “for my user experience” are a complete deal breaker.
QED
Mojo's developers claim that they intend for Mojo to be open source: https://www.modular.com/blog/the-next-big-step-in-mojo-open-...

This is encouraging, and it seems that at least the core of the language is now open: https://github.com/modularml/mojo

I haven't tried it and I don't have a sense of how open Mojo really is today, or what's left that isn't open. I tend to agree that we should take the open source claim with skepticism until we see it in action.

The goals for the project are promising: something like the expressiveness of Python combined with the speed and safety of Rust. If they can pull it off, and it's open source, that will be very impressive.

> something like the expressiveness of Python combined with the speed and safety of Rust.

Isn't that problem already solved? We already have Nim[0] that is memory-safe language with Python-esque syntax and performance of C. Yeah, it's not an extension of Python as Mojo claims to be; but I'd pick a mature language with proven design for my projects over something that's not even out yet.

[0]- http://nim-lang.org

Nim is not memory safe and doesn't technically claim to be. What they claim is to provide memory safe features, but then so does C++ and a lot of other languages.
I didn't understand what you meant. Nim has GC by default. It does support pointers, but then Rust does too.