Re: [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released

Re: [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released

[David Botton]

> The only comunities we are interested in helping are our supported
customers
> and those developing free software products for use in entirely free
software
> activities.

I hope that if you should see (in my opinion, realize) in the future that
making these sort of libraries available in a less restrivtive lic. will
help to garner more interest in Ada and that can only be good for ACT's
business in the future that you will consider changing the lic.

In principle I agree with you, I only wish that Ada was such a force in the
programming world that the GMGPL for anything but the GNAT runtime would not
be (in my opinion) needed.

Either way I hope ACT continues to both use "real" open source licenses and
distribute its sources as it has up until now.

David Botton





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RE: [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Robert Dewar, David Bottom et al.

Robert Dewar wrote:
"The only people who are affected by this policy are non-customers who want
to build proprietary software, or those who want to build tools and
libraries
for such parties, and they have never been on our radar screen."

I can certainly sympathize with your position. Since ACT is a for profit
corporation, I can understand why you do not wish to provide charity for
other profit making ventures.

I believe that what you are doing is the expected result of the economic
model being employed by ACT. This model has produced a two tier pricing
strategy: too high and zero. I also believe that the well-deserved great
success of ACT is in large part the result of technical superiority and
dedication to the use of Ada.

I still believe that in the long run, a significant part of the Ada
community could make a large amount of money by going beyond the outdated
Free Software philosophy and pursuing an effective approach to assist
startups. I have described this and created a first draft of a license (see
references below). Ada technology including ASIS has the unique capacity to
create a rear loaded licensing scheme which includes competitive forces.
This is an ideal condition for capitalizing on a unique software technology.
In short, many of us could make substantial amounts of money by producing
commercial products that work.

R. C. Leif, �SIGAda �98, Workshop: How do We Expedite the Commercial Use of
Ada?.� Ada letters XIX, No 1 pp. 28-39 (1999).
R. C. Leif, �Ada Developers Cooperative License (Draft) Version 0.3�, Ada
letters XIX, No 1 pp. 97-107 (1999).
-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of dewar@gnat.com
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 8:35 AM
To: David@Botton.com; comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Cc: dewar@gnat.com
Subject: Re: [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released


<<Will packages like XML\Ada that are under the new ACT policy be available
for purchase or under a very low price minimal support contract that are
reasonable for small time developers?
>>

No, we are not in this kind of business at all

<<(The guys at RR Software must be loving this new policy :-)
>>

They aren't a force in the Ada market at all at this stage, and they sell
all their stuff under proprietary licenses anyway.

The only people who are affected by this policy are non-customers who want
to build proprietary software, or those who want to build tools and
libraries
for such parties, and they have never been on our radar screen.

The only comunities we are interested in helping are our supported customers
and those developing free software products for use in entirely free
software
activities.

Re: RE: [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released

[Ted Dennison]

In article <mailman.989219766.20003.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, Robert C. Leif,
Ph.D. says...
>I still believe that in the long run, a significant part of the Ada
>community could make a large amount of money by going beyond the outdated
>Free Software philosophy and pursuing an effective approach to assist

Personally, I'm not all that interested in making "a large amount of money" off
of Ada. What I'd like to do is increase the utility and usage of the language,
and trust that the rising tide raises all boats.

I'm not sure where you get "outdated" from. As near as I can tell, the Free
Software licenses are still quite effective at achieving their goals, when
appropriately used. Nothing has happened that I can see to make them obsolete.

The problem here, and David nailed this dead-on in a previous post, is that the
GPL simultaniously encourages further use of the GPL, and discourages use of the
environment in question. This is no new insight; its talked about at length in
the LGPL rationale. If there is no feasable alternative to the environment in
which the GPL'ed code exists, then the net effect is going to be positive (at
least from the perspective of someone who wants to see more GPL'ed code).
However, if there are lots of other alternatives, then the GPL just becomes a
poison pill. That is why the LGPL (and the GMGPL) exists.

In this case, there are certianly no cost (or low cost) alternatives to using
ACT's XML parser on most platforms, but they mostly involve not using Ada. Of
course that's the situation we had *before* the XML parser was released, so its
not like ACT is hurting Ada, they just aren't helping it as much as they could.
But considering that no *other* Ada compiler vendor has seen fit to release
GMGPL'ed code at all, there's no sense bashing ACT about this. 

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released

[Preben Randhol]

On Mon, 07 May 2001 14:23:31 GMT, Ted Dennison wrote:

[...]
> course that's the situation we had *before* the XML parser was
> released, so its not like ACT is hurting Ada, they just aren't helping
> it as much as they could.  But considering that no *other* Ada
> compiler vendor has seen fit to release GMGPL'ed code at all, there's
> no sense bashing ACT about this. 

As I see it the Xml/Ada will greatly help Ada. I'm of course thinking of
the Free Software scene where GPL is used. Now I can easily develope
software with Ada as I have both GtkAda (which is also getting Gnome
support) and XML/Ada available. And other libraries and tools like
Orbit, and different graphics libraries... :-)

I found this rather nice quote at 

   http://erik.bagfors.nu/gnome/languages.html

from Owen Taylor one of the core developers of the GTK+ library: 

   To quote Owen Taylor (at Redhat): 

   And of course, the number 1 tip for GTK+ programming is:  

   - Don't use C; In my opinion, C is a library programming language
     not an app programming language.

Let's add: "Use Ada!" and then show how it is done by making and
releasing apps that are stable and good! :-)

-- 
Preben Randhol ------------------- http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/ --
                 �For me, Ada95 puts back the joy in programming.�

Re: RE: [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released

[Ted Dennison]

In article <mLKJ6.43238$Jh5.41288061@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com>, tmoran@acm.org
says...
>
>  It would be interesting to hear your former competitor's views on
>their reasons for abandoning the Ada compiler business.  In fact, is it
>reasonable to call ACT an "Ada vendor" when it does not in fact "vend"
>Ada compilers?  Isn't ACT a vendor of support services, specialized for
>the GNAT compiler?

I don't think its abandoned, so much as it is that everyone else also does other
stuff to pay the bills. At least, I hope that's the case. I hadn't heard
anything about Rational and Aonix abandoning their Ada products.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: RE: [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released

[tmoran]

> In article <mailman.989219766.20003.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, Robert C. Leif,
> Ph.D. says...
> >I still believe that in the long run, a significant part of the Ada
> >community could make a large amount of money by going beyond the outdated
> >Free Software philosophy and pursuing an effective approach to assist
>
> Personally, I'm not all that interested in making "a large amount of money" off
> of Ada. What I'd like to do is increase the utility and usage of the language,
  It's great than some people work to "increase the utility and usage of
the language" out of pure love, but if you want the result, and not
merely the process, then you should encourage help even from those who do
want, or need, "a large amount of money".  Over the long term, there are
a lot more of the latter than the former.

Re: RE: [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released

[Marin David Condic]

I'd have to agree that insofar as there is "a large amount of money" to be
made doing something, there will be lots of people wanting to do it. Right
now, there are not millions of people wanting to program in Ada. If Dr.
Leif's "Ada Developers Cooperative License" were to gain a little momentum,
it might present an opportunity for many developers to make a few $$$. That
would probably encourage Ada usage.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


<tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message
news:cm6K6.1887$6v6.1802491@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com...
>   It's great than some people work to "increase the utility and usage of
> the language" out of pure love, but if you want the result, and not
> merely the process, then you should encourage help even from those who do
> want, or need, "a large amount of money".  Over the long term, there are
> a lot more of the latter than the former.