Re: Yearly Fees for Support of Compiler

[drew@verdix.com (Drew Johnson)]

In article <2222@ac17.cs.nps.navy.mil> nash@ac17.cs.nps.navy.mil (david nash) writes:
>I disagree with Mr. Taft's point of view.  In my mind, reputable companies
>that market software make an implicit promise of correctness to would-be

I believe that most Ada vendors would agree that what we promise is "reasonable
correctness".  With Ada, what you are paying for is a product that is
guaranteed to pass a rather extensive validation suite.  

>buyers.  The gentleman to whom Mr. Taft responded was suggesting that they
>provide bug fixes without payment, not enhanced features.

While it would be nice to be able to provide bug fixes without payment,
the simple fact is that bug fixes *cost money*.  First off, at least 50%
of the time a customer claims to have a bug, it is actually due to customer
error.  The cost of determining this is not insignificant, because it requires
an experienced software engineer.  Now, even if a real bug has been reported,
the cost of fixing it can be very high.  Because Ada compilers are very complex,
especially in the area of generics, a bug could take days or weeks of an
engineer's time.  Then, after it is fixed, we (Verdix) are not usually
comfortable releasing a fix unless ACVC has been re-run internally to ensure
that no regressions were introduced.  Even when heavily automated, running
ACVC takes time and costs money.

Given that fixing bugs costs money, we have 2 choices for allowing for that
cost:  build it into the purchase price, or charge support.  Ada vendors
do what any other software company does:  charge support.

If you want bug fixes for free, then wait for GNU to come out with an Ada
compiler.  You will probably have a very long wait, however, unless guys
like Mr Taft decide to dump corporate life in order to take the opportunity
to work for free :).

As an aside, try getting an OS patch from Sun if you do not have software 
support.

Drew Johnson
Verdix Corp.
drew@verdix.com