From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,be23df8e7e275d73 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-07-17 12:33:17 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!psinet-eu-nl!psiuk-p4!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: An Ada IDE and discussions Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 14:58:37 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: <9j21sv$9ka$1@nh.pace.co.uk> References: <0zS27.187213$DG1.31590366@news1.rdc1.mi.home.com> <3B4FEFDE.10E7B423@snafu.de> <9iuvsd$361$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <9j12ic$bvi$1@s1.read.news.oleane.net> <9j1ee8$258$1@nh.pace.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 136.170.200.133 X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 995396319 9866 136.170.200.133 (17 Jul 2001 18:58:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 Jul 2001 18:58:39 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:10092 Date: 2001-07-17T18:58:39+00:00 List-Id: Still sounds suspiciously like someone trying to get me to work for free. :-) If I had a business - or worked for one - in which GtkAda or some similar products were part of the end product, I could see an argument for contributing to the project. The "Rising Tide Lifts All Boats" argument might be one reason I'd want to extend the basic product then let my competitors have the enhancements. I might see a case where I sell the enhancements for $$$ and maybe not make them available to my competitors. (In this case, we're talking about a manual - not software - so I'm some kind of value-added repackager.) If my company were already in the process of utilizing this tool, I again might (I stress, "might") find some reason as a customer why it is to my benefit to make some enhancements and make those enhancements available to the folks who sold me the tool - or the general public. A larger user community might have some advantage to me, so providing enhancements may encourage more use & I might gain from that. Maybe. (Why not just buy a tool for a few hundred bucks that already has what I need - including the large user community? A developer's time is *very* expensive in comparison.) But if I'm just a part-time, home-brew, hacker, I don't see much advantage to it. I develop some enhancements as a "Labor of Love" and give it away so that some for-profit company can use it to generate more revenue? How do I gain? Why not just keep it for myself? Likewise, if my company does not have some kind of vested interest in the toolset and is just shopping around for a toolset to get some job done, where is there an incentive for me to do this? If my company wanted to be a tool-building company, presumably we'd have done that already. If we just have some job to do, we want to do it with our efforts concentrated on the job - not tool building. Hence, we go select some tool that will do the job and move on. If the tool doesn't do 100% of what we want, we evaluate other tools to see how close we can get. If we find something that does 100% of what we want, we might look at the price tag and make the classic "Make Or Buy" decision - guess which way that is likely to go... So unless I absolutely can't live without *this* tool and it absolutely needs *this* enhancement and I can't pay someone to make the enhancement less that what it would cost me to do it myself, where is the incentive for me to enhance it? And if I do, where is the incentive to share it? I guess I just don't see much advantage to doing that sort of work unless I stand to gain in some way. How is it I gain if I am not either a tool vendor or don't have a choice about toolsets and need some enhancement? I think that is part of the problem with the GPL. It won't breed developers forever because it doesn't incentivize them much. Sooner or later even computer geeks will catch on. :-) 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/ "Pascal Obry" wrote in message news:uzoa3phda.fsf@wanadoo.fr... > > Well this is an Open Source project. In a sense this is OUR product. You can > build nice documentation for it, add some features that will make it the best > GUI builder in the world... and sell it if you like or sell you support or > whatever. Of course you'll need to also distribute the sources. >