Re: What exactly is the licensing situation with GNAT?

[David Botton <david@botton.com>]

> > Add to that the the GPL compiler has completely closed down all advocacy of Ada for the business world.
> 
> Has the GPL branch produced an opportunity for other compiler makers?

The opportunity is there, however none have taken it. Partly because unfamiliarity with how to monetize Open Source projects, which in the case of most companies to date it is through selling "Support" not the code or executables as the product.

> I understand that they, too, would mostly require customers with
> deeper pockets.

It is not required. It is one market. The problem is that Ada vendors got lazy pursuing other venues since there was easy pickin' on the government cheese.

> As a new customer, I would be
> 
> (1) needing an affordable compiler (Ada 2005, generics working)
> (2) be fine with reduced support (cf. Apple, MS, etc.!)

And you are the majority software developers even for Ada. I placed a business proposal in AdaCore's hands this last Monday to target your market. That proposal lays out how I plan on doing it with their being part or not.


> and compiler vendors would need
> 
> (3) protection against freeloaders destroying their full support
> business.

No, what they need is a good product. AdaCore has that. No one that can afford their support walks away because of bad service. It was shortsighted thinking on their part to make their public version Shareware killing off all startups and serious business investments in Ada.

That is my goal to correct that. I'll be posting various aspects of the Gnoga business model soon, today I will be starting with its goals in another post.

> For (3) to work, have contracts include a clause that limits
> customers who want to employ the affordable compiler in unjust
> enrichment.

Unjust.... I am afraid that thinking is pre-the FSF movement, Gnat is built on GCC and has to be released GPL and the US taxpayer money which also required it be freely available, etc.

Would you say it is unjust that AdaCore is profiting on GCC?

AdaCore has _not been_ unjust, even though not super timely, they have given back to the FSF updates.

They are just outside the "spirit" and "intent" of the above and doing things to hurt Ada advocacy outside of their niche market.

Yes Stallman's position is that he wished he could put a GPL Virus in the compiler, but he states clearly he _didn't_ to advocate the use of Free software...

So let's see AdaCore is not encouraging Free software development OR Ada advocacy by having replaced the runtime on their public version.

What they did was create a Shareware version of GNAT that is intended to make others think that GNAT can not be used for professional use if not their Pro version.

I still am happy they still put out the GPL version despite that it is Shareware. Since without it they would have totally killed the Ada community not just maimed it. 

I am certainly hoping they continue to put out a GPL version but I am pushing and _investing_ time and money with the hope they will match to go back to GMGPL and be part of the new movement to push Ada for general purpose application development.

David Botton