Re: Gnat Free ?

[dewarr@my-dejanews.com]

In article <87pvbs6zb3.fsf@yakisoba.forte-intl.com>,
  Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com> wrote:
> dennison@telepath.com writes:
> > You heard wrong. Well, I suppose it could be considered not free, depending
> > on your definition of free, but lets not get into that. Gnat is under the
> > GPL, and thus can *never* be made proprietary.
>
> Oh yeah?  Just try to talk Dewar out of 3.11b without crossing his
> palm with some cash...  He's even threatened to consider not doing
> business with any one who starts giving out wavefront ("non-p")
> releases (i.e., exercises their right under the GPL).  There is little
> difference in effect between "proprietary" and "hoarded".  The GPL
> does not prevent hoarding.  Stallman has stated that Dewar is
> perfectly free to decide who he gives any particular version of GNAT
> to, and rejected the notion that the "act of distributing" under the
> GPL requires one to become a distributor to every Tom, Dick, and Harry
> and subsequently asks for a copy.
>
> Of course, I've always secretly wondered if Dewar would shutdown his
> business completely if every one of his clients started giving out
> wavefront releases...


Here is how things work at ACT. We are constantly updating the technology.
At any particular time, we have an internal development version, which we
call the wavefront version. This is pretty well tested internally, but
not very well tested externally, since we do not expect our customers to
change compilers every day (a complete new set of compilers is built and
tested every day).

If customers need new functionality or,  as happens sometimes (much less
frequently than it used to), runs into a bug for which there is no work
around, then we give out a copy of the wavefront. Usually the wavefront is in
reasonable shape, because of our internal testing, but quite often there are
problems that need fixing. It works fine for our customers to use the wave
front compilers most of the time, not in the least because they have full
support from us so we can fix all problems.

Periodically, we gear up for a new release. The wavefront becomes the
tentative release candidate, and we encourage customers to beta test the
new release, and thus catch any new errors and regressions, and any other
undesirable behavior to be corrected before the final release.

Then when the final release is made, we make a public version of this
release. This is the process we are currently following for version
3.11b. The status is as follows. Our customers have tested 3.11b releases
for most machines. We have found a few errors, and have corrected them, and
in particular, the NT version of the debugger had some glitches which
necessitated a second beta version.

Things are looking pretty good now for the final 3.11b release, which will be
called 3.11b2, and at that point we will release an equivalent version with
the version number 3.11p for the public release.

Some people would like us to post our wavefronts day by day, but we decline,
not because we are hoarding the software, but because we don't think it is
useful to have unsupported public versions around that are going to cause
people trouble. It is one thing for a customer to take a new beta version and
adapt it for their use with full support from ACT, it is quite another for
a student to pick up a public version without any kind of support.

We think it is in the best interests of the Ada community and the GNAT project
to ensure that the public versions of GNAT that are distributed are as free
as possible from glitches that will cause unsupported users to run into
trouble. We think that it is better to wait, and perhaps be a little behind
the latest-and-greatest, rather than deal with glitches.

Now if you are an expert hacker (in the good sense of the word) like Ronald,
you could probably indeed get by at least some of the problems on your own,
but we do not distribute the public version for the Ronald Coles of the
world, but rather for students learning Ada for the first time, a very
different market.

As for our customers releasing the wavefront, it would be unfortunate, since
it would mean that there were insufficiently tested versions publicly
floating around. If these versions had significant problems, it could reflect
negatively on Ada in general, the GNAT project, and free software in general,
and we think it better to avoid this. Our customers share this viewpoint, and
understand that it is in the best interests of the GNAT project for them not
to publish the wavefront versions.

We certainly have never "threatened to consider not doing
business with any one who starts giving out wavefront". That is
pure fantasy on the part of Ronald Cole. If any customer ever asked
us about our views here, we would simply explain why we felt it was
in the best interests of the GNAT project that wavefront preleases
not be generally released, but the decision would of course be up
to them. Interestingly, we have never been asked the question, let
alone given the answer that Mr. Cole fantasizes.

It certainly would not be a disaster that would cause us to close down
operations here at ACT, that is a very odd view of the world. Our customers
do not pay for support contracts to get hold of the beta releases of our new
technology earlier than otherwise, but to get support. Of course in some
cases, this support does mean that they can get their hands on special
versions that incorporate useful enhancements done for them earlier than
otherwise, but this is a natural and desirable consequence of the way we
operate.

The distance between the current wavefront and the public version varies of
course with the time span. In a couple of weeks, when 3.11p is out, the
public version will be close to synchronized with the commercially supported
version.

Then of course the cycle will start again, and we already have some exciting
new enhancements underway for an eventual 3.12 release. GNAT development
continues at a fast pace, and this will benefit both users of the supported
commercial version, and the publicly available version.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

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