Re: Legislative Mandate for Ada

[rgc@raybed2.msd.ray.com (RICK CARLE)]

In article <EMERY.90Dec17153931@aries.linus.mitre.org>, emery@linus.mitre.org (David Emery) writes:
> >From: bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson)
> >I sat in a meeting where an individual (working in one of the military
> >service DoD secretariets) insisted that any university that got
> >federal money (ROTC, research grants, etc.) should be told to teach
> >Ada or have their money taken away.
> ......I think that any DARPA or DoD-funded project should submit a
> waiver request to do their work in something besides Ada...
> However, unless and until Ada compilers are as affordable as C
> compilers (e.g. Gnu C), such a requirement will be financially
> untenable, since most schools are unwilling to fork out the $$ for an
> Ada compiler.

What's stopping the DoD from buying up a ton of AdaZ licenses and
furnishing them as GFE on DoD projects (esp. research & technology
projects)?  If anything should ever be GFE, it's Ada.
I realize that sounds crazy.  But I seem to remember announcements
claiming that the Army bought 2 Army-wide site licenses for PC software
this year - the Procomm+ communications program and the PKZIP archiver.
I think both of those programs are inexpensive shareware that probably
cost between $35 and $75 a copy.  AdaZ only costs $149 (this month,
anyway).
So I suggest the DoD should do 2 things:
1) buy a DoD-wide site license from Meridian (how could either party
  lose?); and
2) extend that license to provide DoD with enough extra licenses so that
  DoD could provide the compiler as GFE to research and technology
  contractors.

This would provide the universities with plenty of cheap Ada and
eliminate a big obstacle to college-level Ada education.  And it would
reward Meridian for making such a cost breakthrough on Ada compilers.
[Of course the site license wouldn't have to be purchased from Meridian.
It could be put up for bids.]

	Rick Carle