Re: Ada is getting more popular!

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 02:47:38 -0700 (PDT), Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote on comp.lang.ada:
>>>> As for existing companies offering compilers,  you have mentioned
>>>> RRSoftware, there are more Ada companies, some of them offer
>>>> compilers at quite the usual prices. You'll have to ask, though.
>>>
>>> I doubt that there is a single company which earns anything from selling
>>> compilers. Those who sell or give compilers for free refund from somewhere
>>> else.
>>>
>>> This model (also known from Socialism) is not sustainable, so we are
>>> observing the number of compilers for all languages declining, not just for
>>> Ada.
>
>> I don't see what the "sell services, not software" model has to do with
>> socialism.
>
> Redistribution is the key. You pay/invest in not what you get/sell. It is a
> distorted relationship between the producer and consumer.

When a greedy capitalist multinational invests in advertizements, do
they sell advertizements to you? No. But marketing is a major part of
their expenditure.  I think we'll agree that that's a distorted
relationship between producer and consumer.  In the "sell software,
not services" model, the software is a vehicle for advertizing and
selling the services.  If the software is proprietary, you cannot tell
how buggy it is or will be in the future and you must depend on a
single supplier for the services.  If the software is Free Software,
there is no catch and no hidden bugs; all the bugs are in the open and
you don't have to buy services from the same people that provided the
first dose.

> As for services. If you sell them, sooner or later you come to the idea of
> selling them without developing *useful* software. What makes a service
> profitable? The point is that service is secondary to the product. It is a
> parasite living on the host. The success of the former means nothing good
> for the latter.

No, the service is not secondary to the product and you know that. Why
else does your company pay for AdaCore's services if they can get the
same compiler and libraries for free?  Even if your boss only pays to
"cover his ass" (i.e. help with certification), that is still a
valuable service.

>> And this model seems to be more than sustainable for AdaCore;
>> this is probably because they made the concious decision *not* to address
>> the SOHO market (i.e. high volume, low margins) at all.
>
> USSR existed for 80 years before it collapsed.

You still have not provided a satisfactory explanation of why you
think that the "sell services, no software" is socialism, so the
comparison with the USSR is meaningless to me.

> That this model of software development (not only compiler development) is
> not socially/economically sustainable is obvious when you consider present
> software quality (miserable), the types of software being developed (mostly
> useless/damaging), the amount of resources spend directly/indirectly on
> software (huge waste).

No, I explain these things by plain and simple greed and short-
sightedness from most people managing developers and from most
developers themselves.  Socialism has nothing to do with that.  Proof:
the miserable state of software you describe exists also in (some)
very capitalist companies selling high-end, expensive proprietary
software, especially those who charge only a small fraction of the
license fees in "maintenance fees".  These companies are simply not
interested in fixing the bugs that affect their customers; they are
only interested in selling "upgrades".  And the unrealistic time-to-
market pressures (e.g. arbitrarily fixed release schedules) make it
nearly impossible for them to ship bug-free software in the first
place.

--
Ludovic Brenta.