The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:)

The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:)

[Marin David Condic]

I suppose there are some who put their software out under GPL free of charge
from some sort of contempt for the free enterprise system. Unfortunately, if
that is their objective, they are merely subsidizing the Filthy Capitalist
Running-Dog Oppressors of the Poor Working Masses that they hold in
contempt. I, for one, have no such contempt for honest enterprise and legal
profit. :-)

If you have a link to this paper, it might be a good thing to post it. I
rather enjoyed the article myself & I think it made me a big supporter of
the ADCL concept.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.995392315.19704.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> From: Bob Leif
> To: Emmanuel Briot et al.
>
> "a lot of people have made a living out of it." Please read my article.
The
> developers were ripped off. Free Software is a totally inequitable
solution.
> I believe that the developers deserve and should share in royalties. Even
> Karl Marx never envisioned a system of total exploitation where the
workers
> received nothing for their labor.
>
> R. C. Leif, "SIGAda '98, Workshop: How do We Expedite the Commercial Use
of
> Ada?." Ada letters XIX, No 1 pp. 28-39 (1999).
>

Re: ADCL

[Marin David Condic]

There are obviously issues WRT just how much an independent developer should
share in the revenue of a given product. If I build a custom one-off
software product and 10% of the code is yours, maybe that number should be
10% of the gross sale. If I build the next Great American Operating System
and 10% of the code is yours, but I'm retailing this on the order of $29.95
a box to 50,000,000 users, giving you 10% of that gross sale is simply not
going to happen. At that level, it quickly becomes more cost effective for
me to reverse-engineer anything you contributed and get you out of the loop.

For that reason, I think that there would likely be "volume discounts".
First you have to agree on how to determine the relative percentage of
contribution. From there, you can come to an agreement on percentage of
gross sales or some kind of unit cost for your contribution and discount it
for volume as seems appropriate. This isn't that different from when some
company licenses an RTOS (like VxWorks) for embedding in a commercial
eletronics product. There's a price for Quantity 1 and a different price for
Quantity 100,000.

I would think that just because you were to release something under the ADCL
doesn't mean you aren't free to renegotiate a different deal with any
individual or corporation that has an interest in it. You're saying "Unless
otherwise agreed to, you can use this software free and if you sell it you
owe me $X.XX." You can always work a deal with MassiveHard Software to
license your software for $0.0001/copy included in their product. If some
company wants to use it but doesn't like the terms, they can always contact
you and get different terms.

I don't think developers should price themselves out of business, but it
still seems to me that developers should get *some* piece of the action if
someone commercializes their work & makes money with it. It isn't that
different from book publishing - there is a lot that goes into book sales
besides the author's contribution, but the author gets a cut based on sales.
Is that somehow unfair?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message
news:3B54ACA5.9E286B04@PublicPropertySoftware.com...
>
> In the market system of contemporary capitalism, factors like shelf
> space, media placement, etc, are very important factors.  Depending
> on the product, maybe much more important than programming language
> and/or developer talent.
>
> If the source code for a wonderful Ada IDE, object database, or XML
> demihetraline hyperflugenator magically appeared on your doorstep
> tomorrow morning, how far are you from a profitable business based
> on that product?  Is it easier or harder to write code or to turn
> code into a profitable business?   IIRC, last time I checked, the
> combined total profits of software companies #2 to #1000 (ranked by
> revenues) was negative.  In most companies, developers are lucky not
> to share in the profits.
>
>
> Al

RE: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:)

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Marin David Condic
Unfortunately, the Ada Letters web site
http://www.acm.org/sigada/ada_letters/March1999.html only provides the
abstract. I still have the paper in PDF format and am quite willing to have
it posted at that site. If necessary, I can post it on my corporate web
site. However, I believe that it would be far more appropriate for all of
the papers of the March 1999 and hopefully other issues to be on the
sigada/ada letters web site. This is the least we can do to help Ada. In the
interim, anyone who is interested can e-mail me at rleif@rleif.com and I
will send the PDF file.

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Marin David Condic
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 11:13 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:)


I suppose there are some who put their software out under GPL free of charge
from some sort of contempt for the free enterprise system. Unfortunately, if
that is their objective, they are merely subsidizing the Filthy Capitalist
Running-Dog Oppressors of the Poor Working Masses that they hold in
contempt. I, for one, have no such contempt for honest enterprise and legal
profit. :-)

If you have a link to this paper, it might be a good thing to post it. I
rather enjoyed the article myself & I think it made me a big supporter of
the ADCL concept.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.995392315.19704.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> From: Bob Leif
> To: Emmanuel Briot et al.
>
> "a lot of people have made a living out of it." Please read my article.
The
> developers were ripped off. Free Software is a totally inequitable
solution.
> I believe that the developers deserve and should share in royalties. Even
> Karl Marx never envisioned a system of total exploitation where the
workers
> received nothing for their labor.
>
> R. C. Leif, "SIGAda '98, Workshop: How do We Expedite the Commercial Use
of
> Ada?." Ada letters XIX, No 1 pp. 28-39 (1999).
>

RE: ADCL

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Marin David Condic et al.
Of course, I agree. There are several interesting differences between
software and other copyrightable items. Object-oriented design and large
libraries can result in a product using only a small amount of a developer's
creation. The royalties should be based on what is linked. Run-time binding
is beyond me. One developer can extend another's work including creation of
a new body for an old specification. What is the relative worth of the
specification and body? These questions require input.

However, the simplest argument for the ADCL is that something, even if it is
only a possibility, is better than nothing. Since the ADCL requires little
or no cash investment from a developer who reuses another developer's code,
it is a better model for commercial software development then one where
commercial development requires significant upfront costs. The owners of ACT
have every right to disagree with me and quite possible could be correct in
their market, which is a compiler. Lastly, since several members of the Ada
community were educated as chemists, ADCL reduces the potential energy
barrier and thus catalyzes commercialization of Ada.

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Marin David Condic
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 2:42 PM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: ADCL


There are obviously issues WRT just how much an independent developer should
share in the revenue of a given product. If I build a custom one-off
software product and 10% of the code is yours, maybe that number should be
10% of the gross sale. If I build the next Great American Operating System
and 10% of the code is yours, but I'm retailing this on the order of $29.95
a box to 50,000,000 users, giving you 10% of that gross sale is simply not
going to happen. At that level, it quickly becomes more cost effective for
me to reverse-engineer anything you contributed and get you out of the loop.

For that reason, I think that there would likely be "volume discounts".
First you have to agree on how to determine the relative percentage of
contribution. From there, you can come to an agreement on percentage of
gross sales or some kind of unit cost for your contribution and discount it
for volume as seems appropriate. This isn't that different from when some
company licenses an RTOS (like VxWorks) for embedding in a commercial
eletronics product. There's a price for Quantity 1 and a different price for
Quantity 100,000.

I would think that just because you were to release something under the ADCL
doesn't mean you aren't free to renegotiate a different deal with any
individual or corporation that has an interest in it. You're saying "Unless
otherwise agreed to, you can use this software free and if you sell it you
owe me $X.XX." You can always work a deal with MassiveHard Software to
license your software for $0.0001/copy included in their product. If some
company wants to use it but doesn't like the terms, they can always contact
you and get different terms.

I don't think developers should price themselves out of business, but it
still seems to me that developers should get *some* piece of the action if
someone commercializes their work & makes money with it. It isn't that
different from book publishing - there is a lot that goes into book sales
besides the author's contribution, but the author gets a cut based on sales.
Is that somehow unfair?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message
news:3B54ACA5.9E286B04@PublicPropertySoftware.com...
>
> In the market system of contemporary capitalism, factors like shelf
> space, media placement, etc, are very important factors.  Depending
> on the product, maybe much more important than programming language
> and/or developer talent.
>
> If the source code for a wonderful Ada IDE, object database, or XML
> demihetraline hyperflugenator magically appeared on your doorstep
> tomorrow morning, how far are you from a profitable business based
> on that product?  Is it easier or harder to write code or to turn
> code into a profitable business?   IIRC, last time I checked, the
> combined total profits of software companies #2 to #1000 (ranked by
> revenues) was negative.  In most companies, developers are lucky not
> to share in the profits.
>
>
> Al

Re: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:)

[Robert Dewar]

"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote in message news:<9j1v7e$8ik$1@nh.pace.co.uk>...

> I suppose there are some who put their software out under GPL free of 
> charge from some sort of contempt for the free enterprise system.

Actually, I know a lot of programmers who do this because they want
fame and riches, which is rather far from being contemptuous of free
enterprise. If you have copyrighted software that you want to license
to people, there are lots of different models of how you can license
that software. Even if your only goal is to maximize profit,
proprietary licenses may often be a poor choice (simply because they
are a poor choice for your customers, and giving customers what they
want is a rather important dynamic in success in the marketplace).

A lot of nonsense has been written about the GPL recently, most
notably by a large company in Redmond. I suggest that anyone really
interested in understanding how this license works, and how it can
be used successfully in the context of our free enterprise system
should read the GPL FAQ now available at www.gnu.org.

Re: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:)

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <5ee5b646.0107172350.1d6ef192@posting.google.com>, dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) writes:

> A lot of nonsense has been written about the GPL recently, most
> notably by a large company in Redmond. I suggest that anyone really
> interested in understanding how this license works, and how it can
> be used successfully in the context of our free enterprise system
> should read the GPL FAQ now available at www.gnu.org.

Whereas if I were looking for more discussion of this, I would look
for a source less biased than either of the two cited above.

Re: ADCL

[Marin David Condic]

I have absolutely no problems with whatever ACT wants to do with their
software. They can license it any way they like and they have to make their
decisions based on what they think will benefit them the most. For some
software products, this model may make perfect sense. A compiler is a
specialized kind of product and making it open source under GPL might be the
best way of enhancing its commercial potential.

My concern is with a different kind of situation - a small-time software
developer might put out some useful subsystem that someone else might
leverage into a commercial product. In that situation, the small-time
developer needs some means of getting some remuneration from the effort or
it discourages further efforts in that area. Why should some small-time
developer subsidize the development of someone else's commercial product and
gain nothing? I agree that the possibility of *some* reward is better than
the possibility of *no* reward. That's why I like the ADCL concept and would
like to see it advance.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.995434878.2543.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
>
> However, the simplest argument for the ADCL is that something, even if it
is
> only a possibility, is better than nothing. Since the ADCL requires little
> or no cash investment from a developer who reuses another developer's
code,
> it is a better model for commercial software development then one where
> commercial development requires significant upfront costs. The owners of
ACT
> have every right to disagree with me and quite possible could be correct
in
> their market, which is a compiler. Lastly, since several members of the
Ada
> community were educated as chemists, ADCL reduces the potential energy
> barrier and thus catalyzes commercialization of Ada.
>

Re: ADCL

[Al Christians]

"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." wrote:
> 
> Of course, I agree. There are several interesting differences between
> software and other copyrightable items. Object-oriented design and 
> large libraries can result in a product using only a small amount of 
> a developer's creation. The royalties should be based on what is 
> linked. Run-time binding is beyond me. 

As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken.

The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy
for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC.  Do you really 
want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty?  This public 
license with fixed royalty per copy works for music.  With a license 
offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a 
guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever 
the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole
lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided.

The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software 
parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for 
hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in 
ease of interconnection), and pricing  accordingly would strengthen that 
perception.


Al

Re: ADCL

[Marin David Condic]

O.K. This is a kind of progress. We are at least now talking about how to
structure royalties and not about whether or not they should exist at all.

IMHO, I think that any initial attempt to put code out under a
royalty-bearing open source license ought to be as simple as possible. The
ADCL (as Dr. Leif's paper described it) is a bit tricky in this area. It
seeks to set a price based on usage of the components - which while
reasonably equitable, has the disadvantage that it is tough to calculate and
could be subject to abuse, as you point out. Perhaps a flat rate is better -
with obvious discounts for volume. ($1000 for quantity 1, $2000 for 2..50,
$3000 for 51..500, etc?) Maybe the original developer could set a quantity 1
price on his work & have the ADCL stipulate a standard sliding scale for
multiple copies. Maybe for some things, its better to go on percentage of
gross sales based on percentage of included source. Maybe the license should
have several options?

While I understand the equity of counting volumetric usage, my concern is
that a) no tool currently exists to do this and b) the complexity of it may
drive users away from the deal. (Hard to compute in advance what your costs
are going to be.) I wouldn't worry too much about code padding to create
dilution. In theory, people could do this but in practice I think it would
be sufficiently undesirable for the users to muck up their code this way
that the cost advantage probably wouldn't be worth it. Remember, the big
problem here is that if the license starts costing the user too much, he
goes and builds his own. Hence the argument over "is it 40% or 50% of the
end product?" is going to fall into the weeds if the price/unit becomes too
onerous. Besides, the small-time users who want to cheat you just don't pay
and wait for you to come find them. Its the big ticket items with high
visibility that are going to be an issue for the license and the cost of
cheating in those instances just doesn't make it worth while. (Do you
*really* want to pay lawyers to argue about it for years in court? And
possibly lose? Everything? Or is it cheaper just to pay the guy the royalty
he asked for and get on with it?)

The interesting thing to note is that if there *was* a reasonably simple and
accessible license that had *some* measure of success, it would get the ball
rolling and it is always possible to create specialized versions of it with
different pricing schemes and rates. Sort of like going to Office Max and
picking up standardized contract forms wherein you just fill in the numbers.
The ADCL is what you get as a plain vanilla deal that might suit most uses,
but for those areas where it doesn't work well, the user can always contact
the developer and suggest some other license terms.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message
news:3B55ACAB.3EB3CF69@PublicPropertySoftware.com...
>
> As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken.
>
> The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy
> for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC.  Do you really
> want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty?  This public
> license with fixed royalty per copy works for music.  With a license
> offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a
> guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever
> the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole
> lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided.
>
> The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software
> parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for
> hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in
> ease of interconnection), and pricing  accordingly would strengthen that
> perception.
>
>
> Al

Re: ADCL

[Al Christians]

Yes.  The SLOC percentage doesn't work well at all. I'm in favor
of anything where I can figure ahead of time what it will cost.
Sliding scales or anything else.  Flat rate license like (all) of
the commercial toolkits I use would be best. That way I don't have 
to give TurboAdaComponentsInc the right to come audit me to see how many 
copies I sell.  The SLOC percentage won't work at all.  Some of the 
commercial 3rd party libs I use (paying a flat rate in advance, nothing 
per copy) come without source.  Since these represent the same kind of 
contribution to the result as ADCL-licensed code might make, if we
are paying by percent of the project,  I should get some credit for 
paying this cost, as the other libs do contribute to the project just
like the ADCL code would.  But I don't even know how much source is
in these libs, because I get them without source.  Similarly, if you
are charging based on SLOC, I assume that in Ada you are counting 
semicolons.  But if someone is linking in Lisp or some other functional 
language where you have hemongous nesting and no semicolons, you are
in a lot of trouble.  Same kind of problems if you are dealing with 
code that interprets data soft of like  code. Didn't Von Neumann figure
out that it's hard to tell where the code ends and the data begins?

Al


Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> O.K. This is a kind of progress. We are at least now talking about how to
> structure royalties and not about whether or not they should exist at all.
> 
> IMHO, I think that any initial attempt to put code out under a
> royalty-bearing open source license ought to be as simple as possible. The
> ADCL (as Dr. Leif's paper described it) is a bit tricky in this area. It
> seeks to set a price based on usage of the components - which while
> reasonably equitable, has the disadvantage that it is tough to calculate and
> could be subject to abuse, as you point out. Perhaps a flat rate is better -
> with obvious discounts for volume. ($1000 for quantity 1, $2000 for 2..50,
> $3000 for 51..500, etc?) Maybe the original developer could set a quantity 1
> price on his work & have the ADCL stipulate a standard sliding scale for
> multiple copies. Maybe for some things, its better to go on percentage of
> gross sales based on percentage of included source. Maybe the license should
> have several options?
> 
> While I understand the equity of counting volumetric usage, my concern is
> that a) no tool currently exists to do this and b) the complexity of it may
> drive users away from the deal. (Hard to compute in advance what your costs
> are going to be.) I wouldn't worry too much about code padding to create
> dilution. In theory, people could do this but in practice I think it would
> be sufficiently undesirable for the users to muck up their code this way
> that the cost advantage probably wouldn't be worth it. Remember, the big
> problem here is that if the license starts costing the user too much, he
> goes and builds his own. Hence the argument over "is it 40% or 50% of the
> end product?" is going to fall into the weeds if the price/unit becomes too
> onerous. Besides, the small-time users who want to cheat you just don't pay
> and wait for you to come find them. Its the big ticket items with high
> visibility that are going to be an issue for the license and the cost of
> cheating in those instances just doesn't make it worth while. (Do you
> *really* want to pay lawyers to argue about it for years in court? And
> possibly lose? Everything? Or is it cheaper just to pay the guy the royalty
> he asked for and get on with it?)
> 
> The interesting thing to note is that if there *was* a reasonably simple and
> accessible license that had *some* measure of success, it would get the ball
> rolling and it is always possible to create specialized versions of it with
> different pricing schemes and rates. Sort of like going to Office Max and
> picking up standardized contract forms wherein you just fill in the numbers.
> The ADCL is what you get as a plain vanilla deal that might suit most uses,
> but for those areas where it doesn't work well, the user can always contact
> the developer and suggest some other license terms.
> 
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/
> 
> "Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message
> news:3B55ACAB.3EB3CF69@PublicPropertySoftware.com...
> >
> > As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken.
> >
> > The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy
> > for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC.  Do you really
> > want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty?  This public
> > license with fixed royalty per copy works for music.  With a license
> > offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a
> > guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever
> > the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole
> > lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided.
> >
> > The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software
> > parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for
> > hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in
> > ease of interconnection), and pricing  accordingly would strengthen that
> > perception.
> >
> >
> > Al

RE: ADCL

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Al Christians et al.
----------------------------------------
From: the ADA DEVELOPERS COOPERATIVE LICENSE (Draft), Version 0.3 by Robert
C. Leif
"??" means these numbers are my first guess.

Section 4.3. The measurement of software units will by a tool based on the
Ada Semantic Interface Specification. This tool will measure (Linked Lines
of Source Text or Feature Points ??) with the complexity term based on Ada
semantics.

1.26. "Feature Points" means a super set of function points which was
defined by the Software Productivity Research, Inc. in 1986, as cited in
What Are Function Points? by Capers Jones, Chairman, Software Productivity
Research, Inc. (http://www.spr.com/library/0funcmet.htm. Last visited 29
October, 1998. Feature Points add the number of algorithms to the parameters
employed to measure Function Points.

1.27. "Original Lines of Source Text" means a unit of software which is
defined as the total number of semicolons (';') minus the sum of
) the semicolons contained within comments.
) 0.75?? times the semicolons contained in renaming declarations.
) 0.75?? times  the semicolons contained in subtype declarations which do
not include a range.

1.28. "Linked Lines of Source Text" means a unit of software which is
defined as the total number of semicolons which would be actually used in
the linked Executable if
) all loop structures remained intact (no unrolling);
) all instantiations of generics are treated as the equivalent of the source
text which would have been created without the use of the generic;
) all instances of inherited subprograms of tagged types are treated as the
equivalent of the source text which would have been created without the use
of the tagged type.
--------------------------------
Lines of code is a crude approximation to get us going.

R. C. Leif, "Ada Developers Cooperative License (Draft) Version 0.3", Ada
letters XIX, No 1 pp. 97-107 (1999).

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Al Christians
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 8:35 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: ADCL


"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." wrote:
>
> Of course, I agree. There are several interesting differences between
> software and other copyrightable items. Object-oriented design and
> large libraries can result in a product using only a small amount of
> a developer's creation. The royalties should be based on what is
> linked. Run-time binding is beyond me.

As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken.

The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy
for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC.  Do you really
want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty?  This public
license with fixed royalty per copy works for music.  With a license
offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a
guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever
the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole
lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided.

The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software
parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for
hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in
ease of interconnection), and pricing  accordingly would strengthen that
perception.


Al

RE: ADCL

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Al Christians et al.
With ASIS, one can count virtually any Ada construct. In fact from a
scientist's and engineer's point of view, the ability to measure the
quantity of software in a product is needed to do software engineering and
science. ASIS offers a magnificent opportunity to begin to quantitate
software. These measurements will be far from perfect. However, they will be
better than anything else I know of. They have the nice side benefit that
they facilitate equitable remuneration. I believe that the use of an Ada
specific software engineering tool, ASIS, to finally win in the marketplace
will be a very interesting, useful, and hopefully mutually beneficial
undertaking.

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Al Christians
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 10:46 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: ADCL


Yes.  The SLOC percentage doesn't work well at all. I'm in favor
of anything where I can figure ahead of time what it will cost.
Sliding scales or anything else.  Flat rate license like (all) of
the commercial toolkits I use would be best. That way I don't have
to give TurboAdaComponentsInc the right to come audit me to see how many
copies I sell.  The SLOC percentage won't work at all.  Some of the
commercial 3rd party libs I use (paying a flat rate in advance, nothing
per copy) come without source.  Since these represent the same kind of
contribution to the result as ADCL-licensed code might make, if we
are paying by percent of the project,  I should get some credit for
paying this cost, as the other libs do contribute to the project just
like the ADCL code would.  But I don't even know how much source is
in these libs, because I get them without source.  Similarly, if you
are charging based on SLOC, I assume that in Ada you are counting
semicolons.  But if someone is linking in Lisp or some other functional
language where you have hemongous nesting and no semicolons, you are
in a lot of trouble.  Same kind of problems if you are dealing with
code that interprets data soft of like  code. Didn't Von Neumann figure
out that it's hard to tell where the code ends and the data begins?

Al


Marin David Condic wrote:
>
> O.K. This is a kind of progress. We are at least now talking about how to
> structure royalties and not about whether or not they should exist at all.
>
> IMHO, I think that any initial attempt to put code out under a
> royalty-bearing open source license ought to be as simple as possible. The
> ADCL (as Dr. Leif's paper described it) is a bit tricky in this area. It
> seeks to set a price based on usage of the components - which while
> reasonably equitable, has the disadvantage that it is tough to calculate
and
> could be subject to abuse, as you point out. Perhaps a flat rate is
better -
> with obvious discounts for volume. ($1000 for quantity 1, $2000 for 2..50,
> $3000 for 51..500, etc?) Maybe the original developer could set a quantity
1
> price on his work & have the ADCL stipulate a standard sliding scale for
> multiple copies. Maybe for some things, its better to go on percentage of
> gross sales based on percentage of included source. Maybe the license
should
> have several options?
>
> While I understand the equity of counting volumetric usage, my concern is
> that a) no tool currently exists to do this and b) the complexity of it
may
> drive users away from the deal. (Hard to compute in advance what your
costs
> are going to be.) I wouldn't worry too much about code padding to create
> dilution. In theory, people could do this but in practice I think it would
> be sufficiently undesirable for the users to muck up their code this way
> that the cost advantage probably wouldn't be worth it. Remember, the big
> problem here is that if the license starts costing the user too much, he
> goes and builds his own. Hence the argument over "is it 40% or 50% of the
> end product?" is going to fall into the weeds if the price/unit becomes
too
> onerous. Besides, the small-time users who want to cheat you just don't
pay
> and wait for you to come find them. Its the big ticket items with high
> visibility that are going to be an issue for the license and the cost of
> cheating in those instances just doesn't make it worth while. (Do you
> *really* want to pay lawyers to argue about it for years in court? And
> possibly lose? Everything? Or is it cheaper just to pay the guy the
royalty
> he asked for and get on with it?)
>
> The interesting thing to note is that if there *was* a reasonably simple
and
> accessible license that had *some* measure of success, it would get the
ball
> rolling and it is always possible to create specialized versions of it
with
> different pricing schemes and rates. Sort of like going to Office Max and
> picking up standardized contract forms wherein you just fill in the
numbers.
> The ADCL is what you get as a plain vanilla deal that might suit most
uses,
> but for those areas where it doesn't work well, the user can always
contact
> the developer and suggest some other license terms.
>
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/
>
> "Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message
> news:3B55ACAB.3EB3CF69@PublicPropertySoftware.com...
> >
> > As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken.
> >
> > The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy
> > for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC.  Do you really
> > want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty?  This public
> > license with fixed royalty per copy works for music.  With a license
> > offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a
> > guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever
> > the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole
> > lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided.
> >
> > The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software
> > parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for
> > hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in
> > ease of interconnection), and pricing  accordingly would strengthen that
> > perception.
> >
> >
> > Al

Re: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:)

[Robert Dewar]

Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) wrote in message news:<KMGHpckQ7iTM@eisner.encompasserve.org>...

> Whereas if I were looking for more discussion of this, I would look
> for a source less biased than either of the two cited above.

Well if you have a license from someone, it makes sense to read what
*they* think the license says, since they have spent $$$$ with their
lawyers to make sure that the license says what they want. The GPL
FAQ is a very useful description of the details of the GPL. Sure,
if you want to pay an independent attorney lots of $$$ to look at
it and give a supplementary opinion, you can certainly do so, but
for most people, the plain language discussions in the FAQ will be
a useful addition to the legalese in the GPL.

The FAQ represents a consensus position and has been reviewed by a lot
of people, and I have not read of any instance of anyone specifically
contesting any of the statements in this FAQ.

Larry, try reading it and see what you think, I am guessing that the
above statement was made without having bothered to look at the FAQ.