Re: Seeking: Information about available Ada bindings

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <392AB46D.465FDCAC@jhuapl.edu>,
  Rush Kester <Rush.Kester@jhuapl.edu> wrote:
> As a member of SIGAda's Ada Bindings Working Group, I am
hoping to put
> together an exhibit of "Available Ada Bindings" for the SIGAda
2000
> Conference.
>
> If anyone, including vendors, would like to contribute ideas,
please
> contact me at
> Rush.Kester@jhuapl.edu
>
> My goal is to highlight:
>   * Ada bindings available for COTS/Open Source software
>   * Tools for generating Ada bindings for new API's

The presentation here seems to imply that somehow COTS and
Open Source are distinct. In fact these are two orthogonal
concepts.

There can be software that definitely is NOT commercial off
the shelf software but is still open source. Examples are
unsupported research software that does not qualify as
commercial, or specialized software that is commercial but
not "off the shelf".

On the other hand there can definitely be COTS software that
happens to use a license that is compatible with the OSS
definitions. Note that the only difference between typical
open source software and software that is not considered
open source is

   a) the availability of sources
   b) the nature of the license

Certainly we consider GNAT to be COTS, it is most definitely
commercial software, and it is most definitely off the shelf.
Our "shelf" contains all sorts of standard software that we
distribute and support. Yes, like most companies we also do
specialized consulting that would not come under the COTS
description.

I make this point because this is not the first time I have run
into an informal viewpoint that there is a divide between the
notions of COTS and open source, and in fact this is an
incorrect distinction. We are not talking about POTS
(proprietary off the shelf software), but COTS, and most
certainly open source software can be commercial. There are
after all many large companies that are definitely commercial
in nature and built around open source and free software.

It is useful in such a catalog of bindings to talk about the
licensing issues, as Ted pointed out, and also about whether
the bindings are freely available and/or downloadable at no
charge. But let's not create an artificial and unuseful
distinction between OSS and COTS.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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