Linux and Opportunities for Ada

Linux and Opportunities for Ada

[Richard D Riehle]

This is Linux World week in Silicon Valley.  Red Hat has announced 
an IPO. Major software publishers are developing products
that include applications, middleware, and utilities.  So far, 
Ada is not well represented at Linux World.  No Ada-specific 
software companies this week.  Did I miss someone?  

GNAT already runs on Linux.  If you are a software developer who 
likes Ada, and you have an idea for a product, this might be the 
time for you to build it and market it.  The success of Ada is
ultimately going to depend on Ada enthusiasts creating excellent
software for a market where there is a need for new products.
Linux may be the best window of opportunity.  Sonebody once said that, 
"No one gets rich in software writing programs for someone else."  
While this may not be entirely true, it is more likely for you to 
make your fortune writing a software product you can sell over and 
over. Why not do it in Ada?  Ladies and gentlemen, "Start your engines."   

Richard Riehle
richard@adaworks.com
http://www.adaworks.com

Re: Linux and Opportunities for Ada

[William Dale]

Richard D Riehle wrote:
> 
> This is Linux World week in Silicon Valley.  Red Hat has announced
> an IPO. Major software publishers are developing products
> that include applications, middleware, and utilities.  So far,
> Ada is not well represented at Linux World.  No Ada-specific
> software companies this week.  Did I miss someone?
> 
[snip]

The only place I saw Ada discussed was at the Zentropix booth.    
[ http://www.zentropicx.com/ ]   They have a Ada aware gdb tool as well
as other items.  But their claim to fame is the Real-Time Linux kernel. 
I was told that they are working with ACT on integrating the real-time
kernel with Ada tasks and that to look for it mid-2000.   

Of course if someone wants to throw them ( and ACT) some $$$ it might
happen sooner.
 
-- 

"The difference between hardware and software is that the more you play
with hardware, the more likely you are to break it, but the more you
play with software the more likely you are to FIX it."

Bill Dale 
LMMS
mailto:william.dale.jr@lmco.com
mailto:N2RHV@amsat.org

Re: Linux and Opportunities for Ada

[Robert Dewar]

In article <01beeaaa$a56433e0$6eb54f0c@default>,
  "William Thomas" <wthomas.softplex@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Why should the Linux World be any different from the rest of
> the marketing opportunities the Ada vendors have screwed up.
> Lets face it, the vendors will only embrace it after it is too
> late and their is no hope of gaining market share, they will
> appear with too little too late, just as always.

Actually if you were around early on in the 80's the vendors
spent huge amounts of money advertising Ada broadly (e.g. the
series of ads in Byte Magazine by Alsys, which was just one
of the many places this kind of advertisement was run). They
also went to all kinds of general industry shows.

The hard data from this huge expenditure of money was that
it didn't do much. Unless you have a product with a potentially
mass market appeal, shows like Linux World are unlikely to be
cost effective. The point is that languages and compilers are
NEVER mass market appeal items, even in the case of popular
languages -- no one made zillions of dollars selling compilers
(Microsoft certainly does not make their money on compilers).

There is a relatively limited amount of resources available
for Ada promotion and advertisement, and it is important to
spend it most effectively. The general view seems to be that
by FAR the most effective kind of publicity is technical
articles in appropriate trade journals. That still takes time,
money, and effort, but genreally can be far more effective
than paid advertising or attending shows.

There is another big Linux do in New York sometime fairly soon.
That may make sense for us to attend, since obviously the costs
are much lower when the show is close to attend. If we do, we
will report back to CLA on how well it worked (and if there
are Ada/Linux fans in NY, you are certainly welcome to come
and visit us).

Right now, most Ada users and potential Ada users are still
in a wait-and-see mode with Linux, although we certainly see
growing interest in Linux as an Ada target, and as a host for
cross-systems (GNAT is of course available and fully supported
on x86/Linux, and we expect PPC/Linux to be fully supported
in the future).

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Linux and Opportunities for Ada

[Matthew Heaney]

In article <7pihpo$v93$1@nnrp1.deja.com> , Robert Dewar 
<robert_dewar@my-deja.com>  wrote:

> (GNAT is of course available and fully supported on x86/Linux, and we expect
> PPC/Linux to be fully supported in the future).

Awesome!!!  As a LinuxPPC user, it's been a royal pain trying to be an Ada
programmer too.  My homegrown port of GNAT is limping along (with lots of
help from the Ada for Linux team), but it will be a real treat to have to
same ease-of-use and -installation that the x86 guys have had for a while.

<http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/linux-ada/>

Great to hear ACT has taken an interest in Linux-for-PowerPC technology.
Thanks!

<http://www.linuxppc.com/>
<http://www.linuxppc.org/>

--
Matt

It is impossible to feel great confidence in a negative theory which has
always rested its main support on the weak points of its opponent.

Joseph Needham, "A Mechanistic Criticism of Vitalism"

Re: Linux and Opportunities for Ada

[Aidan Skinner]

On 20 Aug 1999 01:06:12 GMT, William Thomas
<wthomas.softplex@worldnet.att.net> wrote: 

>Why should the Linux World be any different from the rest of the marketing
>opportunities the Ada vendors have screwed up. Lets face it, the vendors

I think that part of the problem may be that (like much of the
computing world, except games for some reason) most of the vendors are
US based, where Ada still suffers from the DoD mandate induced
FUD. This attitude seems much less prevelant here (Scotland, and
Europe in general). That isn't to say that it doesn't exist (it does),
but it's less common than it appears to be in the states.

Looking at the email addresses for the Ada/Linux people, the vast
majority seem to be European.

>will only embrace it after it is too late and their is no hope of gaining
>market share, they will appear with too little too late, just as always.

That's what the ada-linux team is for:
(http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/linux-ada/) :) </cape>

- Aidan
-- 
Gimme money, gimme sex, gimme UNIX and root access.
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/

Re: Linux and Opportunities for Ada

[William Thomas]

Richard D Riehle <laoXhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
<7osc8q$m42@dfw-ixnews17.ix.netcom.com>...
 
> Ada is not well represented at Linux World.  No Ada-specific 
> software companies this week.  Did I miss someone?  

Why should the Linux World be any different from the rest of the marketing
opportunities the Ada vendors have screwed up. Lets face it, the vendors
will only embrace it after it is too late and their is no hope of gaining
market share, they will appear with too little too late, just as always.

WJT

Re: Linux and Opportunities for Ada

[mike]

In article <37bd55cc@news1.us.ibm.net>, "Matthew says...
>
 
>
>Awesome!!!  As a LinuxPPC user, it's been a royal pain trying to be an Ada
>programmer too. 

Matt,

PC's are so cheap now, I saw a new 386 PC at fry's electronics
for $295. with disk and memory and all. for couple hundred
more bucks, you can get a 450 MHZ.

Get one of those, install Linux (free) and use GNAT on that. 

Mike
 

Re: Linux and Opportunities for Ada

[Samuel Tardieu]

>>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew Heaney <matthew_heaney@acm.org> writes:

Matthew> Awesome!!!  As a LinuxPPC user, it's been a royal pain trying
Matthew> to be an Ada programmer too.  My homegrown port of GNAT is
Matthew> limping along (with lots of help from the Ada for Linux
Matthew> team), but it will be a real treat to have to same
Matthew> ease-of-use and -installation that the x86 guys have had for
Matthew> a while.

Why don't you install Debian GNU/Linux on your PPC? The "potato"
version (the next one to be released) will include GNAT. If you like
being on the bleeding edge, you can install it today and get GNAT and
all the associated tools (GLADE, ASIS, GtkAda, etc.).

  Sam
-- 
Samuel Tardieu -- sam@ada.eu.org