* The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:) [not found] <mailman.995392315.19704.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org> @ 2001-07-17 18:13 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 5:19 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-18 7:50 ` Robert Dewar [not found] ` <3B54ACA5.9E286B04@PublicPropertySoftware.com> 1 sibling, 2 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-17 18:13 UTC (permalink / raw) I suppose there are some who put their software out under GPL free of charge from some sort of contempt for the free enterprise system. Unfortunately, if that is their objective, they are merely subsidizing the Filthy Capitalist Running-Dog Oppressors of the Poor Working Masses that they hold in contempt. I, for one, have no such contempt for honest enterprise and legal profit. :-) If you have a link to this paper, it might be a good thing to post it. I rather enjoyed the article myself & I think it made me a big supporter of the ADCL concept. 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/ "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message news:mailman.995392315.19704.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org... > From: Bob Leif > To: Emmanuel Briot et al. > > "a lot of people have made a living out of it." Please read my article. The > developers were ripped off. Free Software is a totally inequitable solution. > I believe that the developers deserve and should share in royalties. Even > Karl Marx never envisioned a system of total exploitation where the workers > received nothing for their labor. > > R. C. Leif, "SIGAda '98, Workshop: How do We Expedite the Commercial Use of > Ada?." Ada letters XIX, No 1 pp. 28-39 (1999). > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* RE: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:) 2001-07-17 18:13 ` The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-18 5:19 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-18 7:50 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-18 5:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Marin David Condic Unfortunately, the Ada Letters web site http://www.acm.org/sigada/ada_letters/March1999.html only provides the abstract. I still have the paper in PDF format and am quite willing to have it posted at that site. If necessary, I can post it on my corporate web site. However, I believe that it would be far more appropriate for all of the papers of the March 1999 and hopefully other issues to be on the sigada/ada letters web site. This is the least we can do to help Ada. In the interim, anyone who is interested can e-mail me at rleif@rleif.com and I will send the PDF file. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Marin David Condic Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 11:13 AM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:) I suppose there are some who put their software out under GPL free of charge from some sort of contempt for the free enterprise system. Unfortunately, if that is their objective, they are merely subsidizing the Filthy Capitalist Running-Dog Oppressors of the Poor Working Masses that they hold in contempt. I, for one, have no such contempt for honest enterprise and legal profit. :-) If you have a link to this paper, it might be a good thing to post it. I rather enjoyed the article myself & I think it made me a big supporter of the ADCL concept. 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/ "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message news:mailman.995392315.19704.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org... > From: Bob Leif > To: Emmanuel Briot et al. > > "a lot of people have made a living out of it." Please read my article. The > developers were ripped off. Free Software is a totally inequitable solution. > I believe that the developers deserve and should share in royalties. Even > Karl Marx never envisioned a system of total exploitation where the workers > received nothing for their labor. > > R. C. Leif, "SIGAda '98, Workshop: How do We Expedite the Commercial Use of > Ada?." Ada letters XIX, No 1 pp. 28-39 (1999). > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:) 2001-07-17 18:13 ` The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 5:19 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-18 7:50 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-18 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-18 7:50 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote in message news:<9j1v7e$8ik$1@nh.pace.co.uk>... > I suppose there are some who put their software out under GPL free of > charge from some sort of contempt for the free enterprise system. Actually, I know a lot of programmers who do this because they want fame and riches, which is rather far from being contemptuous of free enterprise. If you have copyrighted software that you want to license to people, there are lots of different models of how you can license that software. Even if your only goal is to maximize profit, proprietary licenses may often be a poor choice (simply because they are a poor choice for your customers, and giving customers what they want is a rather important dynamic in success in the marketplace). A lot of nonsense has been written about the GPL recently, most notably by a large company in Redmond. I suggest that anyone really interested in understanding how this license works, and how it can be used successfully in the context of our free enterprise system should read the GPL FAQ now available at www.gnu.org. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:) 2001-07-18 7:50 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-18 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-19 21:49 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-18 10:46 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <5ee5b646.0107172350.1d6ef192@posting.google.com>, dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) writes: > A lot of nonsense has been written about the GPL recently, most > notably by a large company in Redmond. I suggest that anyone really > interested in understanding how this license works, and how it can > be used successfully in the context of our free enterprise system > should read the GPL FAQ now available at www.gnu.org. Whereas if I were looking for more discussion of this, I would look for a source less biased than either of the two cited above. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: RE:) 2001-07-18 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-19 21:49 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-19 21:49 UTC (permalink / raw) Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) wrote in message news:<KMGHpckQ7iTM@eisner.encompasserve.org>... > Whereas if I were looking for more discussion of this, I would look > for a source less biased than either of the two cited above. Well if you have a license from someone, it makes sense to read what *they* think the license says, since they have spent $$$$ with their lawyers to make sure that the license says what they want. The GPL FAQ is a very useful description of the details of the GPL. Sure, if you want to pay an independent attorney lots of $$$ to look at it and give a supplementary opinion, you can certainly do so, but for most people, the plain language discussions in the FAQ will be a useful addition to the legalese in the GPL. The FAQ represents a consensus position and has been reviewed by a lot of people, and I have not read of any instance of anyone specifically contesting any of the statements in this FAQ. Larry, try reading it and see what you think, I am guessing that the above statement was made without having bothered to look at the FAQ. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <3B54ACA5.9E286B04@PublicPropertySoftware.com>]
* Re: ADCL [not found] ` <3B54ACA5.9E286B04@PublicPropertySoftware.com> @ 2001-07-17 21:41 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 5:40 ` ADCL Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 0 siblings, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-17 21:41 UTC (permalink / raw) There are obviously issues WRT just how much an independent developer should share in the revenue of a given product. If I build a custom one-off software product and 10% of the code is yours, maybe that number should be 10% of the gross sale. If I build the next Great American Operating System and 10% of the code is yours, but I'm retailing this on the order of $29.95 a box to 50,000,000 users, giving you 10% of that gross sale is simply not going to happen. At that level, it quickly becomes more cost effective for me to reverse-engineer anything you contributed and get you out of the loop. For that reason, I think that there would likely be "volume discounts". First you have to agree on how to determine the relative percentage of contribution. From there, you can come to an agreement on percentage of gross sales or some kind of unit cost for your contribution and discount it for volume as seems appropriate. This isn't that different from when some company licenses an RTOS (like VxWorks) for embedding in a commercial eletronics product. There's a price for Quantity 1 and a different price for Quantity 100,000. I would think that just because you were to release something under the ADCL doesn't mean you aren't free to renegotiate a different deal with any individual or corporation that has an interest in it. You're saying "Unless otherwise agreed to, you can use this software free and if you sell it you owe me $X.XX." You can always work a deal with MassiveHard Software to license your software for $0.0001/copy included in their product. If some company wants to use it but doesn't like the terms, they can always contact you and get different terms. I don't think developers should price themselves out of business, but it still seems to me that developers should get *some* piece of the action if someone commercializes their work & makes money with it. It isn't that different from book publishing - there is a lot that goes into book sales besides the author's contribution, but the author gets a cut based on sales. Is that somehow unfair? 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/ "Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message news:3B54ACA5.9E286B04@PublicPropertySoftware.com... > > In the market system of contemporary capitalism, factors like shelf > space, media placement, etc, are very important factors. Depending > on the product, maybe much more important than programming language > and/or developer talent. > > If the source code for a wonderful Ada IDE, object database, or XML > demihetraline hyperflugenator magically appeared on your doorstep > tomorrow morning, how far are you from a profitable business based > on that product? Is it easier or harder to write code or to turn > code into a profitable business? IIRC, last time I checked, the > combined total profits of software companies #2 to #1000 (ranked by > revenues) was negative. In most companies, developers are lucky not > to share in the profits. > > > Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* RE: ADCL 2001-07-17 21:41 ` ADCL Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-18 5:40 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-18 14:57 ` ADCL Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 15:35 ` ADCL Al Christians 0 siblings, 2 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-18 5:40 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Marin David Condic et al. Of course, I agree. There are several interesting differences between software and other copyrightable items. Object-oriented design and large libraries can result in a product using only a small amount of a developer's creation. The royalties should be based on what is linked. Run-time binding is beyond me. One developer can extend another's work including creation of a new body for an old specification. What is the relative worth of the specification and body? These questions require input. However, the simplest argument for the ADCL is that something, even if it is only a possibility, is better than nothing. Since the ADCL requires little or no cash investment from a developer who reuses another developer's code, it is a better model for commercial software development then one where commercial development requires significant upfront costs. The owners of ACT have every right to disagree with me and quite possible could be correct in their market, which is a compiler. Lastly, since several members of the Ada community were educated as chemists, ADCL reduces the potential energy barrier and thus catalyzes commercialization of Ada. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Marin David Condic Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 2:42 PM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: ADCL There are obviously issues WRT just how much an independent developer should share in the revenue of a given product. If I build a custom one-off software product and 10% of the code is yours, maybe that number should be 10% of the gross sale. If I build the next Great American Operating System and 10% of the code is yours, but I'm retailing this on the order of $29.95 a box to 50,000,000 users, giving you 10% of that gross sale is simply not going to happen. At that level, it quickly becomes more cost effective for me to reverse-engineer anything you contributed and get you out of the loop. For that reason, I think that there would likely be "volume discounts". First you have to agree on how to determine the relative percentage of contribution. From there, you can come to an agreement on percentage of gross sales or some kind of unit cost for your contribution and discount it for volume as seems appropriate. This isn't that different from when some company licenses an RTOS (like VxWorks) for embedding in a commercial eletronics product. There's a price for Quantity 1 and a different price for Quantity 100,000. I would think that just because you were to release something under the ADCL doesn't mean you aren't free to renegotiate a different deal with any individual or corporation that has an interest in it. You're saying "Unless otherwise agreed to, you can use this software free and if you sell it you owe me $X.XX." You can always work a deal with MassiveHard Software to license your software for $0.0001/copy included in their product. If some company wants to use it but doesn't like the terms, they can always contact you and get different terms. I don't think developers should price themselves out of business, but it still seems to me that developers should get *some* piece of the action if someone commercializes their work & makes money with it. It isn't that different from book publishing - there is a lot that goes into book sales besides the author's contribution, but the author gets a cut based on sales. Is that somehow unfair? 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/ "Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message news:3B54ACA5.9E286B04@PublicPropertySoftware.com... > > In the market system of contemporary capitalism, factors like shelf > space, media placement, etc, are very important factors. Depending > on the product, maybe much more important than programming language > and/or developer talent. > > If the source code for a wonderful Ada IDE, object database, or XML > demihetraline hyperflugenator magically appeared on your doorstep > tomorrow morning, how far are you from a profitable business based > on that product? Is it easier or harder to write code or to turn > code into a profitable business? IIRC, last time I checked, the > combined total profits of software companies #2 to #1000 (ranked by > revenues) was negative. In most companies, developers are lucky not > to share in the profits. > > > Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: ADCL 2001-07-18 5:40 ` ADCL Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-18 14:57 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 15:35 ` ADCL Al Christians 1 sibling, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-18 14:57 UTC (permalink / raw) I have absolutely no problems with whatever ACT wants to do with their software. They can license it any way they like and they have to make their decisions based on what they think will benefit them the most. For some software products, this model may make perfect sense. A compiler is a specialized kind of product and making it open source under GPL might be the best way of enhancing its commercial potential. My concern is with a different kind of situation - a small-time software developer might put out some useful subsystem that someone else might leverage into a commercial product. In that situation, the small-time developer needs some means of getting some remuneration from the effort or it discourages further efforts in that area. Why should some small-time developer subsidize the development of someone else's commercial product and gain nothing? I agree that the possibility of *some* reward is better than the possibility of *no* reward. That's why I like the ADCL concept and would like to see it advance. 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/ "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message news:mailman.995434878.2543.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org... > > However, the simplest argument for the ADCL is that something, even if it is > only a possibility, is better than nothing. Since the ADCL requires little > or no cash investment from a developer who reuses another developer's code, > it is a better model for commercial software development then one where > commercial development requires significant upfront costs. The owners of ACT > have every right to disagree with me and quite possible could be correct in > their market, which is a compiler. Lastly, since several members of the Ada > community were educated as chemists, ADCL reduces the potential energy > barrier and thus catalyzes commercialization of Ada. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: ADCL 2001-07-18 5:40 ` ADCL Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-18 14:57 ` ADCL Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-18 15:35 ` Al Christians 2001-07-18 16:12 ` ADCL Marin David Condic 2001-07-19 3:04 ` ADCL Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 1 sibling, 2 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-07-18 15:35 UTC (permalink / raw) "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." wrote: > > Of course, I agree. There are several interesting differences between > software and other copyrightable items. Object-oriented design and > large libraries can result in a product using only a small amount of > a developer's creation. The royalties should be based on what is > linked. Run-time binding is beyond me. As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken. The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC. Do you really want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty? This public license with fixed royalty per copy works for music. With a license offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided. The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in ease of interconnection), and pricing accordingly would strengthen that perception. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: ADCL 2001-07-18 15:35 ` ADCL Al Christians @ 2001-07-18 16:12 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 17:46 ` ADCL Al Christians 2001-07-19 3:04 ` ADCL Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 1 sibling, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-18 16:12 UTC (permalink / raw) O.K. This is a kind of progress. We are at least now talking about how to structure royalties and not about whether or not they should exist at all. IMHO, I think that any initial attempt to put code out under a royalty-bearing open source license ought to be as simple as possible. The ADCL (as Dr. Leif's paper described it) is a bit tricky in this area. It seeks to set a price based on usage of the components - which while reasonably equitable, has the disadvantage that it is tough to calculate and could be subject to abuse, as you point out. Perhaps a flat rate is better - with obvious discounts for volume. ($1000 for quantity 1, $2000 for 2..50, $3000 for 51..500, etc?) Maybe the original developer could set a quantity 1 price on his work & have the ADCL stipulate a standard sliding scale for multiple copies. Maybe for some things, its better to go on percentage of gross sales based on percentage of included source. Maybe the license should have several options? While I understand the equity of counting volumetric usage, my concern is that a) no tool currently exists to do this and b) the complexity of it may drive users away from the deal. (Hard to compute in advance what your costs are going to be.) I wouldn't worry too much about code padding to create dilution. In theory, people could do this but in practice I think it would be sufficiently undesirable for the users to muck up their code this way that the cost advantage probably wouldn't be worth it. Remember, the big problem here is that if the license starts costing the user too much, he goes and builds his own. Hence the argument over "is it 40% or 50% of the end product?" is going to fall into the weeds if the price/unit becomes too onerous. Besides, the small-time users who want to cheat you just don't pay and wait for you to come find them. Its the big ticket items with high visibility that are going to be an issue for the license and the cost of cheating in those instances just doesn't make it worth while. (Do you *really* want to pay lawyers to argue about it for years in court? And possibly lose? Everything? Or is it cheaper just to pay the guy the royalty he asked for and get on with it?) The interesting thing to note is that if there *was* a reasonably simple and accessible license that had *some* measure of success, it would get the ball rolling and it is always possible to create specialized versions of it with different pricing schemes and rates. Sort of like going to Office Max and picking up standardized contract forms wherein you just fill in the numbers. The ADCL is what you get as a plain vanilla deal that might suit most uses, but for those areas where it doesn't work well, the user can always contact the developer and suggest some other license terms. 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/ "Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message news:3B55ACAB.3EB3CF69@PublicPropertySoftware.com... > > As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken. > > The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy > for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC. Do you really > want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty? This public > license with fixed royalty per copy works for music. With a license > offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a > guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever > the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole > lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided. > > The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software > parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for > hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in > ease of interconnection), and pricing accordingly would strengthen that > perception. > > > Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: ADCL 2001-07-18 16:12 ` ADCL Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-18 17:46 ` Al Christians 2001-07-19 4:04 ` ADCL Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 0 siblings, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-07-18 17:46 UTC (permalink / raw) Yes. The SLOC percentage doesn't work well at all. I'm in favor of anything where I can figure ahead of time what it will cost. Sliding scales or anything else. Flat rate license like (all) of the commercial toolkits I use would be best. That way I don't have to give TurboAdaComponentsInc the right to come audit me to see how many copies I sell. The SLOC percentage won't work at all. Some of the commercial 3rd party libs I use (paying a flat rate in advance, nothing per copy) come without source. Since these represent the same kind of contribution to the result as ADCL-licensed code might make, if we are paying by percent of the project, I should get some credit for paying this cost, as the other libs do contribute to the project just like the ADCL code would. But I don't even know how much source is in these libs, because I get them without source. Similarly, if you are charging based on SLOC, I assume that in Ada you are counting semicolons. But if someone is linking in Lisp or some other functional language where you have hemongous nesting and no semicolons, you are in a lot of trouble. Same kind of problems if you are dealing with code that interprets data soft of like code. Didn't Von Neumann figure out that it's hard to tell where the code ends and the data begins? Al Marin David Condic wrote: > > O.K. This is a kind of progress. We are at least now talking about how to > structure royalties and not about whether or not they should exist at all. > > IMHO, I think that any initial attempt to put code out under a > royalty-bearing open source license ought to be as simple as possible. The > ADCL (as Dr. Leif's paper described it) is a bit tricky in this area. It > seeks to set a price based on usage of the components - which while > reasonably equitable, has the disadvantage that it is tough to calculate and > could be subject to abuse, as you point out. Perhaps a flat rate is better - > with obvious discounts for volume. ($1000 for quantity 1, $2000 for 2..50, > $3000 for 51..500, etc?) Maybe the original developer could set a quantity 1 > price on his work & have the ADCL stipulate a standard sliding scale for > multiple copies. Maybe for some things, its better to go on percentage of > gross sales based on percentage of included source. Maybe the license should > have several options? > > While I understand the equity of counting volumetric usage, my concern is > that a) no tool currently exists to do this and b) the complexity of it may > drive users away from the deal. (Hard to compute in advance what your costs > are going to be.) I wouldn't worry too much about code padding to create > dilution. In theory, people could do this but in practice I think it would > be sufficiently undesirable for the users to muck up their code this way > that the cost advantage probably wouldn't be worth it. Remember, the big > problem here is that if the license starts costing the user too much, he > goes and builds his own. Hence the argument over "is it 40% or 50% of the > end product?" is going to fall into the weeds if the price/unit becomes too > onerous. Besides, the small-time users who want to cheat you just don't pay > and wait for you to come find them. Its the big ticket items with high > visibility that are going to be an issue for the license and the cost of > cheating in those instances just doesn't make it worth while. (Do you > *really* want to pay lawyers to argue about it for years in court? And > possibly lose? Everything? Or is it cheaper just to pay the guy the royalty > he asked for and get on with it?) > > The interesting thing to note is that if there *was* a reasonably simple and > accessible license that had *some* measure of success, it would get the ball > rolling and it is always possible to create specialized versions of it with > different pricing schemes and rates. Sort of like going to Office Max and > picking up standardized contract forms wherein you just fill in the numbers. > The ADCL is what you get as a plain vanilla deal that might suit most uses, > but for those areas where it doesn't work well, the user can always contact > the developer and suggest some other license terms. > > 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/ > > "Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message > news:3B55ACAB.3EB3CF69@PublicPropertySoftware.com... > > > > As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken. > > > > The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy > > for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC. Do you really > > want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty? This public > > license with fixed royalty per copy works for music. With a license > > offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a > > guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever > > the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole > > lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided. > > > > The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software > > parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for > > hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in > > ease of interconnection), and pricing accordingly would strengthen that > > perception. > > > > > > Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* RE: ADCL 2001-07-18 17:46 ` ADCL Al Christians @ 2001-07-19 4:04 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 0 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-19 4:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Al Christians et al. With ASIS, one can count virtually any Ada construct. In fact from a scientist's and engineer's point of view, the ability to measure the quantity of software in a product is needed to do software engineering and science. ASIS offers a magnificent opportunity to begin to quantitate software. These measurements will be far from perfect. However, they will be better than anything else I know of. They have the nice side benefit that they facilitate equitable remuneration. I believe that the use of an Ada specific software engineering tool, ASIS, to finally win in the marketplace will be a very interesting, useful, and hopefully mutually beneficial undertaking. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Al Christians Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 10:46 AM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: ADCL Yes. The SLOC percentage doesn't work well at all. I'm in favor of anything where I can figure ahead of time what it will cost. Sliding scales or anything else. Flat rate license like (all) of the commercial toolkits I use would be best. That way I don't have to give TurboAdaComponentsInc the right to come audit me to see how many copies I sell. The SLOC percentage won't work at all. Some of the commercial 3rd party libs I use (paying a flat rate in advance, nothing per copy) come without source. Since these represent the same kind of contribution to the result as ADCL-licensed code might make, if we are paying by percent of the project, I should get some credit for paying this cost, as the other libs do contribute to the project just like the ADCL code would. But I don't even know how much source is in these libs, because I get them without source. Similarly, if you are charging based on SLOC, I assume that in Ada you are counting semicolons. But if someone is linking in Lisp or some other functional language where you have hemongous nesting and no semicolons, you are in a lot of trouble. Same kind of problems if you are dealing with code that interprets data soft of like code. Didn't Von Neumann figure out that it's hard to tell where the code ends and the data begins? Al Marin David Condic wrote: > > O.K. This is a kind of progress. We are at least now talking about how to > structure royalties and not about whether or not they should exist at all. > > IMHO, I think that any initial attempt to put code out under a > royalty-bearing open source license ought to be as simple as possible. The > ADCL (as Dr. Leif's paper described it) is a bit tricky in this area. It > seeks to set a price based on usage of the components - which while > reasonably equitable, has the disadvantage that it is tough to calculate and > could be subject to abuse, as you point out. Perhaps a flat rate is better - > with obvious discounts for volume. ($1000 for quantity 1, $2000 for 2..50, > $3000 for 51..500, etc?) Maybe the original developer could set a quantity 1 > price on his work & have the ADCL stipulate a standard sliding scale for > multiple copies. Maybe for some things, its better to go on percentage of > gross sales based on percentage of included source. Maybe the license should > have several options? > > While I understand the equity of counting volumetric usage, my concern is > that a) no tool currently exists to do this and b) the complexity of it may > drive users away from the deal. (Hard to compute in advance what your costs > are going to be.) I wouldn't worry too much about code padding to create > dilution. In theory, people could do this but in practice I think it would > be sufficiently undesirable for the users to muck up their code this way > that the cost advantage probably wouldn't be worth it. Remember, the big > problem here is that if the license starts costing the user too much, he > goes and builds his own. Hence the argument over "is it 40% or 50% of the > end product?" is going to fall into the weeds if the price/unit becomes too > onerous. Besides, the small-time users who want to cheat you just don't pay > and wait for you to come find them. Its the big ticket items with high > visibility that are going to be an issue for the license and the cost of > cheating in those instances just doesn't make it worth while. (Do you > *really* want to pay lawyers to argue about it for years in court? And > possibly lose? Everything? Or is it cheaper just to pay the guy the royalty > he asked for and get on with it?) > > The interesting thing to note is that if there *was* a reasonably simple and > accessible license that had *some* measure of success, it would get the ball > rolling and it is always possible to create specialized versions of it with > different pricing schemes and rates. Sort of like going to Office Max and > picking up standardized contract forms wherein you just fill in the numbers. > The ADCL is what you get as a plain vanilla deal that might suit most uses, > but for those areas where it doesn't work well, the user can always contact > the developer and suggest some other license terms. > > 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/ > > "Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message > news:3B55ACAB.3EB3CF69@PublicPropertySoftware.com... > > > > As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken. > > > > The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy > > for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC. Do you really > > want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty? This public > > license with fixed royalty per copy works for music. With a license > > offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a > > guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever > > the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole > > lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided. > > > > The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software > > parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for > > hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in > > ease of interconnection), and pricing accordingly would strengthen that > > perception. > > > > > > Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* RE: ADCL 2001-07-18 15:35 ` ADCL Al Christians 2001-07-18 16:12 ` ADCL Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-19 3:04 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 1 sibling, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-19 3:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Al Christians et al. ---------------------------------------- From: the ADA DEVELOPERS COOPERATIVE LICENSE (Draft), Version 0.3 by Robert C. Leif "??" means these numbers are my first guess. Section 4.3. The measurement of software units will by a tool based on the Ada Semantic Interface Specification. This tool will measure (Linked Lines of Source Text or Feature Points ??) with the complexity term based on Ada semantics. 1.26. "Feature Points" means a super set of function points which was defined by the Software Productivity Research, Inc. in 1986, as cited in What Are Function Points? by Capers Jones, Chairman, Software Productivity Research, Inc. (http://www.spr.com/library/0funcmet.htm. Last visited 29 October, 1998. Feature Points add the number of algorithms to the parameters employed to measure Function Points. 1.27. "Original Lines of Source Text" means a unit of software which is defined as the total number of semicolons (';') minus the sum of ) the semicolons contained within comments. ) 0.75?? times the semicolons contained in renaming declarations. ) 0.75?? times the semicolons contained in subtype declarations which do not include a range. 1.28. "Linked Lines of Source Text" means a unit of software which is defined as the total number of semicolons which would be actually used in the linked Executable if ) all loop structures remained intact (no unrolling); ) all instantiations of generics are treated as the equivalent of the source text which would have been created without the use of the generic; ) all instances of inherited subprograms of tagged types are treated as the equivalent of the source text which would have been created without the use of the tagged type. -------------------------------- Lines of code is a crude approximation to get us going. 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 Al Christians Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 8:35 AM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: ADCL "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." wrote: > > Of course, I agree. There are several interesting differences between > software and other copyrightable items. Object-oriented design and > large libraries can result in a product using only a small amount of > a developer's creation. The royalties should be based on what is > linked. Run-time binding is beyond me. As royalties that depend on how smart the linker is are beyond my ken. The simplest would be for the author to puplich a flat $ amount per copy for commercial use instead of the percent based on SLOC. Do you really want me to just pad my SLOC count to reduce your royalty? This public license with fixed royalty per copy works for music. With a license offering based on flat fee per copy sold, the author can at least take a guess at how much advantage his package offers in comparison to whatever the competition (commercial, free, write it myself) is, and a whole lot of complicated math and what-if questions are cleanly avoided. The idea (that Ada promoters should promote, I think) is that software parts should to embody the same positive qualities that work for hardware parts (in reliability, in buy-vs-build comparisons, and in ease of interconnection), and pricing accordingly would strengthen that perception. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2001-07-19 21:49 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 13+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- [not found] <mailman.995392315.19704.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org> 2001-07-17 18:13 ` The Ada Developers Cooperative License (was Re: Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 5:19 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-18 7:50 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-18 10:46 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-19 21:49 ` Robert Dewar [not found] ` <3B54ACA5.9E286B04@PublicPropertySoftware.com> 2001-07-17 21:41 ` ADCL Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 5:40 ` ADCL Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-18 14:57 ` ADCL Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 15:35 ` ADCL Al Christians 2001-07-18 16:12 ` ADCL Marin David Condic 2001-07-18 17:46 ` ADCL Al Christians 2001-07-19 4:04 ` ADCL Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-19 3:04 ` ADCL Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
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