Re: No call for Ada

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

Well, I'm sure I could get my company to cough up a conference room for 
some kind of after-hours team sessions to facilitate some discussion. I 
don't know how much that would help. But I like the idea of doing 
something that puts together a book/CD for publication. Potentially, 
this is something a publishing firm could partially finance - but they 
wouldn't likely do that without seeing some market that would justify 
the cost. It may end up a follow-on deal.

What I'd imagine doing would be to pull together an integrated kit that 
supported a GUI, Database and Class Library. That might not be an 
unachievable goal, but, as you observe, it would take some money. 
Volunteer software only gets so far and the public seems to like the 
"Professionalism" that comes with commercially supported products.

Its a noble goal and I'd be willing to discuss it - and even do some 
speculative work on it if we agree on where it should go. However, I'd 
have to agree that it will need money eventually, so I don't see any way 
of doing this as an all-volunteer, evenings-and-weekends project.

MDC


Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> Here's a idea to ease the adoption of Ada, and thus expand it, and thus
> augment the percentage of reliable software in the world, and throw some
> business our way along with it.
> 
> The main result is a CD+book that constitutes the big package everyone seems
> to be expecting, containing every resource/library required to learn Ada and
> build a vast class of applications, and easy to install and use.
> 
> *The economical feasability of this project assumes that such a package does
> not exist already. Is GNAT Pro it? Is ACE? Another? If yes then stop reading
> here.*
> 
> The realisation of this project requires money investment and/or resources,
> because I see no other way to do it than setting up a team of Ada library
> mantainers, application developers, authors, and perhaps trainers, holding
> at least one initial physical meeting in a laboratory somewhere. 10 or 20
> people.
> 
> This requires coordination, leading to the selection of participants and
> identification of leaders. CEO+CTO is a likely structure. The very initial
> brainstorming could be done right here on CLA, but to advance it should
> rapidly shift to a dedicated structure. A virtual organization.
> 
> The first gathering would take a week or two and result in:
> - the first prototype of the product
> - a planned structure to produce and distribute copies of it
> - coordination and maintainance structures strengthened.
> 
> The launch would of coincide with Ada 2005 :-)
> 
> This project clearly need managerial and commercial skills as well as
> technical, and as I said, money investment (e.g. for the meetings), and thus
> a business plan, and thus a market research. We have some market indicators
> from the people on this list, but perhaps not enough. Basically we need to
> have a good idea of how many entities would buy a copy, and for how much.
> The expenditures we know. Once we have the market figures, the business plan
> is relatively easy.
> 
> 


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Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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