Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <513a9r$10na@ilx018.iil.intel.com>, Uri Raz <uraz@iil.intel.com> writes:

>    The issue is about two questions :
>     1. Is the GNAT a good Ada compiler ? (= is software X worthy of use ?)
>     2. Does support give the bang for the bucks, and will continue to do
>        so in the future ?
> 
>    As the first question is ignored in this thread, I think it boils down to
>   the second - would GNAT users get their money's worth of support or not.

It is not necessarily the case that a customer gets their money's
worth on support charges for traditional products, so GNAT should
not be held to a higher standard in that regard.

>    The arguments claiming that the software's & support's quality having to do
>   anything with where the money goes are vacuum thin - people might do good job
>   for free, or bad job for good money, and payment might always cover non
>   product related expenses (taxes, delivery, company overheads, whatever).

I did not claim that there was necessarily any relationship.  I stated
as a bold fact that such untraditional arrangements made me nervous
and (at least implicitly) claimed they were likely to make others
nervous as well.  There is nothing to be done to cure that human
reaction (other than years of experience to make the new methods
traditional), but it should be taken into account for business
planning purposes, as I am sure Robert, Jim and others have been
doing all along.

Larry Kilgallen