From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,2c7b0b777188b7c4 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: "Steve Whalen" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL Edition Maintenance and Upgrades Date: 27 Oct 2005 22:41:41 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1130478101.700035.316750@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> References: <1128499462.850353.146890@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <87ek6zom2h.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <87ek697ga5.fsf@willow.rfc1149.net> <435e99ee$0$23939$9b4e6d93@newsread2.arcor-online.net> <1130321538.366226.26460@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> <4360b346$0$22526$9b4e6d93@newsread4.arcor-online.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.238.135.165 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1130478106 9200 127.0.0.1 (28 Oct 2005 05:41:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 05:41:46 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: G2/0.2 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com; posting-host=68.238.135.165; posting-account=GBMmzA0AAABrZ0dHOASa3b2Cdf-RliH9 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:6021 Date: 2005-10-27T22:41:41-07:00 List-Id: Georg Bauhaus wrote: > I can't find statements that Ada Core is/was commited to releasing > only GMGPL packages of their software. > I do remember reading that they would continue to contribute > their sources to the FSF tree. A quote from a message from Robert Dewar of ACT/AdaCore speaking on behalf of ACT/AdaCore on September 14, 1997 announcing GNAT 3.10p here in comp.lang.ada: "Ada Core Technologies will continue to develop the GNAT technology, and make public releases from time to time reflecting the state of this important developing technology." I agree with the old saying: "Actions speak louder than words". NYU/ACT/AdaCore did _only_ GMGPL "public releases" for 10 years from 1994 through 2004 (not a single GPL only release was done by AdaCore until 2005). The public promise to keep making public releases combined with the fact that for 10 years ACT/AdaCore only did GMGPL releases is why some of us are disappointed in the GPL only public release by AdaCore in 2005. Also, AdaCore was completely consistent for that entire 10 year period in it's announced philosophy which showed AdaCore understood that Ada is _not_ C++ and needs all the help it can get to keep Ada from dying out as a language. Maybe AdaCore now thinks that Ada has hit the big time and no longer needs all the help it can get. From 1994 to 2004 that meant that small shops that must do proprietary closed source work to survive, but who cannot at least initially afford a vendor's support were able to use a commercial quality (but not validated) compiler called GNAT. Now they must buy a non-GNAT Ada compiler, or as has been noted elsewhere, switch to Borland's Delphi (if they like strongly typed languages) or switch to C++, etc. Not a positive step for the Ada language in the long run. Steve