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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1479b753518e2325 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Al Christians Subject: Re: how to make Ada more popular? Date: 1999/01/23 Message-ID: <36AA1A72.63EF89C@easystreet.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 436061335 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <787hk5$q6t@drn.newsguy.com> <36A793AB.7A000E82@netwood.net> <78c4h1$l29$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: news7.ispnews.com 917116845 206.103.35.169 (Sat, 23 Jan 1999 13:40:45 EDT) Organization: Trillium Resources Corporation MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 13:40:45 EDT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-01-23T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: micro_ada@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > > Borland allowed third-party Pascal vendors to make money by providing > a distribution mechanism which kept the source code a secret. Borland > called the mechanism compiled "units" or binary compatible units. > Compatibility was determined by comparing version stamps. Third-party > vendors could then securely sell units and interfaces to their units. > This didn't work very well, because Borland changed the version about annually, obsoleting all the old units. Version 4.0 of Turbo Pascal (late 1987) introduced units. Many vendors sold units for version 4. Version 5.0 (early 1989) broke all the old units and customers discovered that they couldn't rebuild an executable with it until all their vendors had supplied upgraded units. Some vendors were gone and few did this free. When version 5.5 appeared within about six months, before the dust had settled on the previous problems, the practice of selling units was just about dead. Full source code distribution (with various restrictive license terms) became just about universal. Al