Re: In praise of Ada Freeware

["Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com>]

To a large extent, this is provided under the Ada Developers Cooperative
License. The source is available. Using it does not mean you have to release
your adaptations. There is no charge to use the software in most cases. the
only departure is that it reserves rights in the event that the software is
used in a product for resale. (Of course, as the author, you can always give
up that right - in effect saying you want a royalty of $0.00) It seems you
get *most* of what "Freeware" would entail - maybe in some ways more - but
allowing for the possibility of some remuneration in the event of commercial
success.

It seems to me that there isn't anything particularly "sinful" about wanting
to make a few $$$ off of released software if someone wants to use the
software in some commercial product. The ADCL is a lot less restrictive than
the GPL in the sense of enabling use by a wide variety of people - it just
reserves some financial rights in some rather limited cases.

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/


"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam> wrote in message
news:my6BKStAaXFs@eisner.encompasserve.org...
> Some advocate using GPL licensing for software because it makes it
> more available to others, regardless of vendor changes of heart.
> In many cases they believe a revolution in the nature of software
> licensing and distribution is appropriate.
>
> Some advocate using traditional licensing because it better fits
> the general economic model for other goods (aside from recipes :-).
> In many cases they feel it will be better accepted by the existing
> business establishment.
>
> There is a third model, where the originator allows others to use
> the software for any purpose without compensation, but imposes no
> restriction like GPL regarding publication of the amended source.
> That third model is often criticized by the GPL fans (because the
> amended source is not available) and by the traditional model fans
> (because there is no compensation to the originator).  On the other
> hand, it is happily adopted by traditional businesses in the case of
> very useful bodies of code, such as Apache.
>
> I believe the third method (known for years as Freeware) may have
> particular appeal to some Ada zealots, particularly if they have some
> other source of income from their "real job".  Freeware gives no
> compensation to the originator.  Freeware gives no guaranteed that
> the amended source will be made generally available.  But companies
> that would adapt Freeware, and would not (for whatever reason) want
> to create GPL modifications, perform one goal of many zealots when
> they accept Ada Freeware -- they start using Ada.
>
> If instead they decide to transliterate Ada Freeware into some other
> language (and the Ada Freeware is well written), they get a example
> of how Ada can do much better.