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-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e6545823a74c7c29 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Paul Whittington Subject: Re: GNAT Professional ? Date: 1998/09/15 Message-ID: <35FE3057.B87B0FF@grep.net> X-Deja-AN: 391293159 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <6t6ihg$dkn1@onews.collins.rockwell.com> <6t93vn$g8l$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <35F91C48.87202332@elca-matrix.ch> <6tc3bf$omu$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <35FABAEA.BBA81103@grep.net> <6tk2gb$tkf$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Trace: 905850971 HLLAGTWDSD911C 07C usenet80.supernews.com Organization: GrepNet, Incorporated Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-09-15T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Thanks for the WONDERFUL news Robert :) I know that you're running a business at ACT and that the demands of doing so have made it necessary for you to abandon your former ~$1200 per seat per year supported product offering that made GNAT a reasonable alternative to Delphi, VC++ etc. for us. I'm not happy to hear that ACT's plans only include an annual public release of GNAT :( We are a small company, and don't need the kind of support ACT provides in its product offerings; and we can't afford it :( We considered using the public version of GNAT and relying on our own skills, as well as the support of the wonderfully helpful folks that use GNAT around the world, and came to the conclusion that, unlike the Linux folks for instance, there just wasn't enough bug-fix/enhancement activity going on with the public release of GNAT. It sounds like ACT's plans support our observation :( I guess you at ACT have surveyed the Open Source landscape and decided that unlike some of the other products in that space (e.g. GCC, Tcl/Tk) that provide source upgrades on a frequent basis doing so with GNAT is not in your best interest. Its your business, and you have to make the call. I do however have a request. I request that you read the following statements, and those of anyone else that cares to chime in, and reconsider your decision to release only once a year or so. Changing your policy and releasing more frequently would not damage your reputation as a supplier of high-quality supported Open Source software. I think that's already been established. On the contrary, it would serve to backup any commitment ACT has to the tradition of the Open Source community with concrete action consistent with such a commitment. Thus improving your standing as an Open Source supplier. Additionally, it would help to stimulate the development and use of Ada in commercial software projects, thus increasing ACT's potential "supported product" market. On that point, it's not the wealthy conservative corporate IT organizations, for the most part, that are going to be willing to take a chance, use Ada, and see if the Ada ROI is real. Rather its the small software developer, representing equally small and aggressive business clients that are always looking for an edge, that's going to be willing to find out if Ada development and maintenance is really 50% cheaper. If its true the small developer's clients will benefit greatly, larger IT organizations will get interested, and the small developer may become a larger developer who can afford ACT's supported product offerings :) In our case, we'd love to be developing state-of-the-art corporate MIS systems with integrated E-Commerce deployed on intranets, extranets, and the Internet using Ada's superior software engineering features, tasking and distributed system capabilities. The Ada community as a whole, and ACT specifically, could be benefiting from our work and success, as well as the work and success of others. Finally, I submit that making more frequent releases would be somewhat of an invitation to folks to get more involved in the development of GNAT itself, and tools to support the successful use of GNAT in a variety of domains. Now I know that there are already many groups and individuals involved in GNAT related development, and that more involvement could be as much of a problem for ACT as a benefit, but having played in the Delphi arena for some time now I do think that the Ada arena could stand some growth along these lines. I have the highest respect and admiration for ACT's GNAT team, and more eyes, experiences, and imaginations couldn't hurt. TTFN Paul dewarr@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > In article <35FABAEA.BBA81103@grep.net>, > Paul Whittington wrote: > > What public version? > > > > In two days it'll be one year since the last "public" release of GNAT :( > > The current publicly released version of GNAT is 3.10p, which > indeed was released about a year ago. Our general plan is > to make new public releases on approximately a 12 month > schedule. > > We are fairly close to on track for that. We expect to > release GNAT Professional 3.11b in the next day or two (we > will announce that release on CLA, with details). > > Assuming we have no packaging/installation problems in our > final builds, which we will determine from customer feedback, > then the corresponding 3.11p release will follow. We have had > a 3.11b-beta out for a few weeks so we do not expect any > major suprises. As always we like to be VERY sure that there > are no installation glitches in the public release, since we > know that a LOT of people will be trying to install it without > support, and we want that to be as smooth as possible. > > We will make all support announcements on CLA at the > appropriate point. > > Robert Dewar > Ada Core Technologies > > -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- > http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum -- Paul Whittington GrepNet, Inc. paul@grep.net "Even if you're on the right track you'll get run over if you stand still." Will Rodgers