Re: Ada is getting more popular!

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 02:47:38 -0700 (PDT), Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote on comp.lang.ada:
>> They weren't killed, they moved into different business. It is the market
>> of compilers which was killed [by the GPL].
> 
> I differ.  In the particular case of Ada, I doubt there woult be any
> market at all if it weren't for the zero-cost editions of GNAT.

In absence of the market GNAT GPL is certainly welcomed. But its existence
only supports the point.

> These attract younger developers and make Ada visible.

So would them C, C++, Objective C, Fortran and dozen other GCC front-ends,
provided your argument were valid. Which I suppose is: free things attract
young people.

> Personally, I think the GPL saved the market of Ada compilers.

It saved Ada, but GCC didn't save the market, which was almost dead before
GCC became usable. In this constellation of events the dying marked played
in favor of GCC, GCC profited gaining the users leaving the market, and so
aggravated the situation. Note I don't argue that FSF killed the market, it
was rather a social reaction on its death.

> Maybe the same effect could
> have been achieved with non-free compilers at low cost (less than 100
> EUR) but the competition from other languages with zero-cost compilers
> for other languages might have killed the Ada market entirely.

Absolutely. Ada followed the path paved by others. If it didn't, it would
vanish. But that is not the point.

>>> As for existing companies offering compilers, �you have mentioned
>>> RRSoftware, there are more Ada companies, some of them offer
>>> compilers at quite the usual prices. You'll have to ask, though.
>>
>> I doubt that there is a single company which earns anything from selling
>> compilers. Those who sell or give compilers for free refund from somewhere
>> else.
>>
>> This model (also known from Socialism) is not sustainable, so we are
>> observing the number of compilers for all languages declining, not just for
>> Ada.
> 
> I don't see what the "sell services, not software" model has to do with
> socialism.

Redistribution is the key. You pay/invest in not what you get/sell. It is a
distorted relationship between the producer and consumer.

As for services. If you sell them, sooner or later you come to the idea of
selling them without developing *useful* software. What makes a service
profitable? The point is that service is secondary to the product. It is a
parasite living on the host. The success of the former means nothing good
for the latter.

> And this model seems to be more than sustainable for AdaCore;
> this is probably because they made the concious decision *not* to address
> the SOHO market (i.e. high volume, low margins) at all.

USSR existed for 80 years before it collapsed.

That this model of software development (not only compiler development) is
not socially/economically sustainable is obvious when you consider present
software quality (miserable), the types of software being developed (mostly
useless/damaging), the amount of resources spend directly/indirectly on
software (huge waste).

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de