The last rant before the next push (off the edge) of a rambling fool

The last rant before the next push (off the edge) of a rambling fool

[David Botton]

I am making a lot of noise and while I think most people understand my position on AdaCore and GNAT, I think some may misunderstand it. Since I am going to put work in to enlist others / and try myself to produce and clearly push to distribute publicly, packages of GNAT for _Professional_ non-safety critical Application use. I want it to be clear my intentions are Ada advocacy and not AdaCore as the adversary. I want them to _profit_ as much as I want _everyone else_ too from Ada. 

AdaCore's continued decision through the years to support free software (as in Stallman free) makes them one of my favorite companies on the planet throw in that they are doing it by building and maintaining the only free software compiler for Ada makes them a hero to me.

Most of us growing up become adults when we learn to forgive our parents for being human, when we realize that Superman sometimes does stupid things, cause well he is almost human (I don't want to be around him when he is drunk!). We learn that heroes are not gods and they do the same stupid things we do.

For those of us in the US we want and enjoy heroes, we dream of being heroes, it motivates us and is part of our psyche, "you can even be the president little Johny!" Other cultures (I was shocked to learn growing up) despise heroes and if every "cowboy" was just a farmer they would be more comfortable with that and all would be good in the universe.

Anyways...    My point is that, sometimes a hero makes mistakes (even if it is only in your eyes) and even does something hurtful (unwittingly usually) you don't throw them away if you are an adult. You understand them and deal with it.

I lost years of work, money and dreams when AdaCore decided to create stumbling blocks to have access to easily used unencumbered free compilers and runtimes. I didn't shout or complain, I just walked away. I feel that no one has the obligation to produce free software (even though ethically they should for code outside the core IP) and all the more so no one putting in their hard work _has_ to allow others to produce non-free software, i.e. AdaCore even in my opinion has no "obligation" to help Ada or the Ada community. There is a win win for them, time will tell if they open to it or are willing to discuss it. They could easily be at the forefront of expanding Ada's market.

Now I think it is short sighted and foolish business, you take a language with a small user base and make it even smaller, upset the few people that care, discourage anyone from considering it for their new projects outside of those with huge budgets or academics (worst by convincing everyone the "free" compiler is a toy). Clearly there is a lack of focus not seeing that your product is not the compiler but the services you provide, etc. What is, is.

This will likely be the last post, at least I'll try, to mention AdaCore's black spot on the good reputation they have else-wise, their support is top notch, the work is professional, their benevolence in returning to the community at least through the FSF their modifications to GNAT and the runtime, etc. are all amazing and better than most. I just want it to be _clear_, my interest in the coming efforts associated with Gnoga, however they turn out, for _ professional_ free as in Stallman and unencumbered with a GPL virus toolset for desktops (as I've said in theory I actually don't have a major issue with the GPL virus but on my "tools", my language and its base run time... That is like tivoization to developers.)

David Botton

BTW, who am I that it should matter what I think, no one really. I am just some whiny baby who enjoys using Ada for user land applications and wants others to share in its benefits and figured he would give one more chance to make his old dream of quality programming tools with freedom for the freelance programmers.