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: 103376,3a20687b5291e42e X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1995-03-28 02:07:02 PST Path: nntp.gmd.de!stern.fokus.gmd.de!ceres.fokus.gmd.de!zib-berlin.de!Germany.EU.net!wizard.pn.com!satisfied.apocalypse.org!news.mathworks.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!admii!cmcl2!thecourier.cims.nyu.edu!thecourier.cims.nyu.edu!nobody From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Fed OOPS ... OOPS! We forgot to include Ada! Date: 27 Mar 1995 21:46:54 -0500 Organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences Message-ID: <3l7tau$egn@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> References: <3kkng4$j1s@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> <3kveke$lg3@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> <3l3dgc$4gi@stout.entertain.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: gnat.cs.nyu.edu Date: 1995-03-27T21:46:54-05:00 List-Id: Well I guess we must be doing *something* right to draw such fire from the eminent Greg Aharonian and Colin James III :-) Just so everyone else has a clear picture of what ACT is up to, the idea is to generate continuing support for the development of GNAT by offering commercial support services to any users of GNAT who need such commercial support. Two important points here. First: GNAT will continue to be freely available, any maintenance we do, including any fixes, modifications and improvements made in response to trouble reports from paid support customers, will be made available by FTP and on CD/ROM etc to everyone. Second: ACT won't in any sense own GNAT, it couldn't if it wanted to, which it certainly doesn't. We provide only servce, and presumably people will sign up for this support if they need it, and if ACT provides appropriate value. A complex product like GNAT is clearly out of range to be maintained purely on the basis of volunteer efforts, and we are definitely interested in seeing GNAT survive and prosper. We don't think that it is reasonable to expect the government to continue to foot the cost of this maintenance, and the Cygnus experience indicates that it is viable for a free software product to survive and prosper on this basis. Incidentally, we fully expect other companies to provide support and services for GNAT. Already Labtek has forged ahead with the NT version, and SGI is integrating the SGI version into their advanced software environment tools. We are happy to work closely with anyone who wants to get involved with the GNAT work.