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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,344332f209947007 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@gnat.com Subject: Re: Gnat Free ? Date: 1998/10/16 Message-ID: <708ln4$52b$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 401951702 References: <6volj0$250$1@uuneo.neosoft.com> <3620F843.39465221@home.com> <3621E42C.2920@Entenhausen.net> <700rfc$6h4$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <3627196D.720A@Entenhausen.net> <707ha5$oaf$1@cf01.edf.fr> <36275DBF.1E96@Entenhausen.net> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x13.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Oct 16 23:43:32 1998 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/2.02 (OS/2; I) Date: 1998-10-16T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <36275DBF.1E96@Entenhausen.net>, Donald.Duck@Entenhausen.net wrote: > Pascal Obry wrote: > > Of course it is. You have, since more than 1 year, a 3.10p version available > > for many platforms ! > > Many thanks. I've heard that it would be no longer free as there is > commercial support now. Well there has been commercial support for GNAT for quite a while now (four years), but public versions have also been made available periodically for this period. During the original contract, the DoD required public releases. After ACT took over, we continued the tradition of making periodic public releases, and will continue to do so. In the free software model, there is nothing incompatible about having a freely available public version, and a commercial version with commercial support. Different users have different needs. A student wanting to learn Ada can perfectly well use the public version, and does not need commercial support. A large company using Ada for a critical project will almost certainly NOT want to use unsupported software (certainly we avoid the use of unsupported software here at ACT itself). And for them the commercial support is what makes it possible for them to take advantage of the technical capabilities of GNAT, while still getting good support. Furthermore, the fees that the commercial customers pay help to support the continued development and availability of the public version, which in turn helps support the continued use of Ada, which is to everyone's advantage. That's the free software model, and it is working very effectively to support the continued development of GNAT. As those of you who are using 3.11 technology now know, the 3.11 version is a significant advance on 3.10, and you will all get to see this shortly when we release 3.10p Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own