Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is now available

["Marc A. Criley" <mcNOSPAM@mckae.com>]

Tapio Kelloniemi wrote:

> Many people have said that what AdaCore has done is not good for the image
> of Ada. I ask, isn't that bad for Ada's image that although new Ada2005
> features are available in GNAT GPL, they are not provided for Free
> Software developers (in Debian or other distros). Generally people are
> lazy (or unable) to install software themselves (even from third-party
> provided binaries) and when searching for a language, they just choose C++
> instead, since the most featureful (and stable) Ada compiler is not
> available. Those who have voted against GNAT GPL seem not to be mostly
> free software developers, but I think that Debian should consider
> free software developers as the primary target of their distribution, since
> its free.

I think there are two motivations at work here.  One is the Stallman/FSF 
philosophy of Free (libre) software, as licensed by the GPL.  The other, 
here in this newsgroup anyway, is Ada advocacy.

Now I'm all for the GPL, I wish all the software in the world was under 
the GPL.  But it isn't, and truth be told, of the multi-billion dollar 
software industry very little of that software is GPLed.  (I don't want 
to haggle over the percentage, but think about this:  what is the nature 
of the licensing of most of the software that most businesses, your 
friends, and family are using?  And where are they getting it?  I doubt 
it's GPL, and I doubt they're downloading it from CVS repositories.)

So if you want to market a software product, you have to go to where the 
money is, and that means customers with proprietary concerns.

Trying to sell them a software tool or utility, or give it to them and 
sell support, that would force them to GPL their own code is just going 
to be a non-starter in an overwhelming number of instances.

So if you want to sell them an Ada tool, to enhance or encourage a 
customer company's use of Ada, the last thing you want to do is tell 
them they have to change or set the licensing of their products to be 
GPL compatible.  They're not going to do that, so they're not going to 
gain the advantages of your product, and so why bother with Ada anyway 
any more, since Visual Studio C++ or C# or Java doesn't force them to do 
anything like that?

GPL-GNAT appears to be promoting the Free agenda over the Ada advocacy 
agenda, which is the problem the OMSs (One-Man-Shops) here are having 
with it.  It's hard enough selling just Ada, without also having to sell 
the GPL to commercial, proprietary companies.

-- Marc A. Criley
-- McKae Technologies
-- www.mckae.com
-- DTraq - XPath In Ada - XML EZ Out