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From: Michael Bode <m.g.bode@web.de>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: GNAT GPL 2005: Too clever by half?
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 01:30:52 +0200
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Date: 2005-09-24T01:30:52+02:00
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Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:

> I'll repeat once more: I personally have no objection to libgnat being
> GPLed.  And now today's idea: if AdaCore came out of the closet and
> said "from now on we do dual licensing like TrollTech, MySQL or
> Sleepycat", I'd have no problems with that, and I'd find it difficult
> to sympathise with "greedy proprietary capitalists".

But that's just what happend now. The only problem is that AdaCore
seems to say "Gnat is for 2 types of developers: GPL developers and
the ones like Airbus and Boeing. If you are a One-Man-Show(*)
closed-source developer, go away, use ObjectAda or forget about Ada
altogether." Which is still fine, but could someone please explain to
me what's their profit from this strategy? 

They already have the contracts from Airbus and Boeing and they sure
won't get much contracts from the One-Man-Shows at 14000$/year when
one can get Visual C++/C# between 119� and 899�.

(*) this also includes larger businesses where software is only a
small part of the product.

What should a "greedy proprietary capitalist" do if he simply happens
to need a third party closed-source library in his Ada app? Something
like a DLL to access an device like a spectrometer or a PLC. I can't
make an app GPL if one part of it is a CSS DLL which has to pe payed
per copy and for which I don't have the source. Am I evil?

My consequence is to look for alternatives to Gnat be it other Ada
compilers in an affordable price range (0 .. 2000�) or other
languages.

BTW: does GtkAda (as long as it is GMGPL) work with ObjectAda?

-- 
Michael Bode