Oh, ok. But pardon the ignorance, but how do the investors make a return on their investment, freemium language and premium tools?
Probably the editor will have domain-specific add-ons and libraries developed and supported by the company. They can also provide workshops and certifications if the language gets more popular.
"Freemium language" is not an option. The language is, and will be free and open source. I cannot even imagine any other option, particularly after open sourcing the codebase. Premium tools and services is the way to go for us and we don't feel that would be detrimental for Luna. It ranges all the way from simple consulting services to running a Luna based cloud environment, but there is no threat for Luna as a language in that. On the contrary, this kind of support usually helps boost the technology.
Yea, having a first mover advantage on every major product in and around the language is how they profit. Sort of a pretty old racket actually. Create a brand new market vertical, and then build the ecosystem for it before anyone can even access it. It's kind of like pre-mining a crypto currency. Except that in this case it's actually useful and a primary way for the field to move forward, indeed many of the most useful languages in the world start like this.