From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,9a5f3bd162009c01 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL 2005: Too clever by half? References: <70e0e$4331acfc$4995583$14979@ALLTEL.NET> <87hdcew7wq.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <1127511077.919641.107390@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <87hdcasf3o.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> In-Reply-To: <87hdcasf3o.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <20eZe.3450$QE1.1476@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net> Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 15:10:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.13.56 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net 1127574654 209.165.13.56 (Sat, 24 Sep 2005 08:10:54 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 08:10:54 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5102 Date: 2005-09-24T15:10:54+00:00 List-Id: Ludovic Brenta wrote: > > > Not for internal development; the GPL only kicks in if you want to > distribute your program. For internal development, GNAT GPL 2005 > Edition is just fine. > Doesn't matter. Even if it is strictly internal development, a big corporation won't want to accept any restrictions on what they develop as their own IP. They don't know how they might want to use it tomorrow. If it has license restrictions on their IP, this might preclude them from selling it to someone on their own terms at a later date. Like I said, as a businessman, I would not accept that for anything I pay to develop. Arguments that they could use another compiler (or buy support from ACT) won't really help. The path of least resistance will be to go with some alternative - and that alternative will likely not be Ada. > But this is all the "marketing argument". > Perhaps - but I think it is a losing marketing argument. > > > 4) Use Debian, AIDE, Red Hat, MinGW, or any of the other binary > distributions that ship GNAT or GCC with Ada support under GMGPL. > They tend to use Windows for most of this. They don't want to spend time trying to figure out how to get a compiler environment built for windows - they want to install it and get on with developing. Availability of a binary that is unencumbered with restrictions on their software may help - but for the tenuously held market, I'd really hate to see it be even a little bit harder to get something that would work. Most companies don't want to spend money on hiring a bunch of geeks to get something to work. They want a disk full of software that just plugs in and they can go to town. They want it on their existing Windows platforms. They want it to install with the ease they are used to for other Windows software. If they can only get it with Linux, it becomes a dead issue. If they have to dork around with getting it to work on Windows, its a dead issue. They'll go somewhere else - there are alternatives. > 5) Compile GCC and all required libraries yourself from the sources in > the CVS repositories. These are under GMGPL. > Unless they have some critical use, they won't spend time and energy building it for themselves. Nor would I. > 6) Use GNAT GPL 2005 Edition unless and until they plan to distribute > their program in binary-only form. > See the problem with a company's IP I identified above. Even if it is strictly internal, they won't want to be encumbered. They'll find alternatives. > >>Perhaps there's a good capitalist business opportunity here? > > > Yes, probably; I've said that before in this thread. There appears to > be a small market of people and companies willing to pay for minimal > support. > Most of the people I've got using Ada are using Gnat 3.15p (including myself) and they may not feel a need to switch (I don't). The issue may come up WRT Ada05. Unless there is some freely (or inexpensively) available Ada05 compiler that doesn't impose restrictions, my belief is that a large number of users won't look at Ada05 and will go down alternate routes. (Stick with what you've got and/or start migrating to C/C++ like "everyone else".) Ada does not have some big, captive market and is thus not in a good position to start dictating T's and C's on people. The worst thing that can happen is that a perception may get started that "You can't use Ada for proprietary development like you can with other languages..." Remember, the bulk of the users out there are not that sophisticated in distinguishing between a language and an implementation - and in a world with only a small number of implementations, there *isn't* much distinction. If they see that they can develop proprietary code with a gcc C compiler but can't develop proprietary code with a Gnat Ada compiler - you'll start hearing about how "You can develop proprietary code with C but you can't do it with Ada..." MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: No.Mcondic.Spam@Del.Mindspring.Com (Remove the "No.", ".Spam" and "Del." for the real address.) "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried." -- G. K. Chesterton ======================================================================