Apparently from version 3.0 Scratch is proprietary and doesn't run offline on free operating systems[0]. That's just sad. There are some good ideas in Scratch, but I think Snap![1] is the better one to use: It's free, and you can create your own (recursive) blocks[2].
[0]: https://scratch.mit.edu/download
That made me assume that it was proprietary, but I'm very happy to be proven wrong about this. Furthermore it looks like unlike 2.0, Scratch no longer depends on the proprietary Adobe Air component, so if that is the case, it's a big improvement!
It would be less confusing if they'd replace "Linux is currently not supported" with a link to their repository on Github. I might contact them about that.
Can't wait to try it out!
Does anyone know whether Scratch 3 supports recursion like Snap! does?
Last time I looked, I didn't manage to find it anywhere...
Compare that to internationalization, which they support out of the box with 40 languages, and which countless projects ignore.
What features should they have sacrificed for the port? Sound and music? Lego mindstorms integration?
I don't think it's sad that the offline version doesn't run on Linux. It sounds to me like they know their target market and are prioritizing their engineering effort quite well.
Thanks for the Snap reference! I wasn't aware of it and agree that it appears very appealing.
They do also have a desktop version (PC, Mac) for those without Internet access. But the strength of Scratch is the online sharing and community.
The license appears to be: BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License