Re: GNAT GPL is not shareware

["Jedi Tek'Unum" <jeditekunum@gmail.com>]

On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 2:15:34 PM UTC-6, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> "Jedi Tek'Unum" wrote:
> >GPL violators are common but nowhere else is an entire language held 
> >hostage.
> 
> Bull. The GPL (and free software in general) have destroyed the professional 
> software market by devaluing it. (What's less valued than free?). Instead of 

True. But that ship has sailed. All of us must adapt.

> having a vibrant array of choices in both programming languages and 
> implementations thereof, you really only have one choice for each (dressed 
> up in different packages, but the same thing underlying).

There are many proprietary (or non-GCC) C/C++ compilers. Every system vendor
has one. While GCC can be used on any of those platforms I, for one, could
care less - because the native toolset is better AND easier. When a new
version of an OS comes out one can be certain that the platform compiler
"just works". Linux is not everything.

> Plenty of other professional languages "are held hostage", because they 
> don't even exist (at least in any usable form). There is no way to get them 
> built, because there is no hope of making any money on them. All one gets is 

So here we are 30+ years since Ada was created and 20+ years since GNAT
was created. An ISO standard language. Still fractured (3 different
levels - FSF/GPL/Pro) and still huge platform availability barriers.

Ada is not going to grow until that is fixed. Ada has to become a tool
that is used to make money, not the money maker itself. Linux seems
to survive that way.

As long as the predominate maker of Ada technology refuses to enter
the 21st century then Ada is hostage.

> > So one could say that Free Software most likely will lead directly to the 
> > destruction of human civilization. :-)
> 
> I think I best explain this smiley in case someone misinterprets what I 
> think here.
> 
> I certainly don't believe that Free Software (specifically the GPL) is the 
> sole cause of this result, or even the most important cause. It contributes, 
> ...
> outright lies.) That instant gratification mentality leads directly to 
> trial-and-error software, because people don't think they have the time to 
> do it right (they're usually wrong, but the mentality of getting something 
> up in 12 hours leads to trying to do too much too quick in some instant 
> gratification platform and results in at best unmaintainable junk).

And this is new? Broadly speaking, software has always been junk.

> Has anyone ever wondered why we've never been visited by other intelligent 
> life

Because they are afraid of us. We are dangerous/crazy.

> development -- at some point all such life gets so much technology that they 
> lose the ability to grow anymore -- and we're right at that point now. (This 

Tribalism is eating away at everything on every level everywhere. I
include software as well - there are tribes for languages, operating systems,
...