* A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations @ 2010-12-18 23:21 Kulin Remailer 2010-12-19 1:00 ` Shark8 ` (4 more replies) 0 siblings, 5 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-18 23:21 UTC (permalink / raw) Hi, I have been looking over Ada (the 95 variant) and it looks like a great language. Are there any free (as in no license restrictions, not GPL- anything) GUI libraries? What choices are there for handling output besides text? gcc-Ada looks good but I prefer to avoid gcc as much as I can and I also haven't found anything but GtkAda that seems to be GPLed. What Ada toolchains are available for 64 bit Linux that can be used to generate 32 or 64 bit Linux/UNIX executables that are in a hobbyist's price range (let's say up to 1000 USD). Do they include their own GUI libraries? Do they include any data base bindings? What else should I look for? I don't need a 2005 compliant toolchain as far as I know. I'll be ok with an Ada95 compiler. And will I be able to generate Windows executables from any of these Linux-based toolchains? Basically I want to know what kind of investment I need to make to have an unencumbered Ada95 toolchain with all the features I need to write and deploy general applications without having to go fishing for libraries. Thank you. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-18 23:21 A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-19 1:00 ` Shark8 2010-12-19 2:55 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2010-12-19 9:28 ` Pascal Obry 2010-12-19 13:48 ` Ludovic Brenta ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 2 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Shark8 @ 2010-12-19 1:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Adacore has a freely available GPL compiler available for Linux or Windows, though I am unsure if it generates 64-bit executables I know it will generate 32-bit ones: http://libre.adacore.com/libre/ I haven't done any investigating into GUI libraries for Ada yet so I cannot answer regarding that. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-19 1:00 ` Shark8 @ 2010-12-19 2:55 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2010-12-19 9:06 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-12-22 14:46 ` anon 2010-12-19 9:28 ` Pascal Obry 1 sibling, 2 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2010-12-19 2:55 UTC (permalink / raw) On 12/18/2010 5:00 PM, Shark8 wrote: > Adacore has a freely available GPL compiler available for Linux or > Windows, though I am unsure if it generates 64-bit executables I know > it will generate 32-bit ones: http://libre.adacore.com/libre/ > > I haven't done any investigating into GUI libraries for Ada yet so I > cannot answer regarding that. For GUI, check GKtAda http://www.thefreecountry.com/sourcecode/gui.shtml PLPLOT http://plplot.sourceforge.net PGPLOT http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/pgplot/ DISLIN http://www.mps.mpg.de/dislin/ free for non-commerical, but no Ada binding, only C/Fortran etc... openGL http://adaopengl.sourceforge.net/ and I am sure there are more if you google hard ;) --Nasser ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-19 2:55 ` Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2010-12-19 9:06 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-12-22 14:46 ` anon 1 sibling, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-12-19 9:06 UTC (permalink / raw) On Sat, 18 Dec 2010 18:55:06 -0800, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: >> I haven't done any investigating into GUI libraries for Ada yet so I >> cannot answer regarding that. > > For GUI, check > > GKtAda GtkAda (Gtk) http://libre.adacore.com/libre/tools/gtkada/ QtAda (Qt) http://www.qtada.com JEWL (Windows) http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je/jewl CLAW (Windows) http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/prodinf/claw/claw.htm -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-19 2:55 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2010-12-19 9:06 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-12-22 14:46 ` anon 1 sibling, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: anon @ 2010-12-22 14:46 UTC (permalink / raw) In <iejs79$qj8$1@speranza.aioe.org>, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> writes: >On 12/18/2010 5:00 PM, Shark8 wrote: >> Adacore has a freely available GPL compiler available for Linux or >> Windows, though I am unsure if it generates 64-bit executables I know >> it will generate 32-bit ones: http://libre.adacore.com/libre/ >> >> I haven't done any investigating into GUI libraries for Ada yet so I >> cannot answer regarding that. > >For GUI, check > >GKtAda > >http://www.thefreecountry.com/sourcecode/gui.shtml > >PLPLOT http://plplot.sourceforge.net > >PGPLOT http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/pgplot/ > >DISLIN http://www.mps.mpg.de/dislin/ free for non-commerical, but no >Ada binding, only C/Fortran etc... > >openGL http://adaopengl.sourceforge.net/ > >and I am sure there are more if you google hard ;) > >--Nasser > > > There is also SDL-1.2.14 at www.libsdl.org/ and the NCurses 5.7 package contains the binding for Ada95 at www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-19 1:00 ` Shark8 2010-12-19 2:55 ` Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2010-12-19 9:28 ` Pascal Obry 1 sibling, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2010-12-19 9:28 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Shark8 Le 19/12/2010 02:00, Shark8 a �crit : > Adacore has a freely available GPL compiler available for Linux or > Windows, though I am unsure if it generates 64-bit executables I know > it will generate 32-bit ones: http://libre.adacore.com/libre/ There is compilers for GNU/Linux and Darwin which generate 64-bit executable. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://www.obry.net - http://v2p.fr.eu.org --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" --| --| gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key F949BD3B ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-18 23:21 A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations Kulin Remailer 2010-12-19 1:00 ` Shark8 @ 2010-12-19 13:48 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-12-20 15:41 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-19 14:52 ` Stephen Leake ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 1 reply; 24+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-12-19 13:48 UTC (permalink / raw) Kulin Remailer writes: > I have been looking over Ada (the 95 variant) and it looks like a > great language. Are there any free (as in no license restrictions, not > GPL- anything) GUI libraries? What choices are there for handling > output besides text? gcc-Ada looks good but I prefer to avoid gcc as > much as I can and I also haven't found anything but GtkAda that seems > to be GPLed. There is a list of compilers with their licensing terms and some libraries in the "Ada Programming" wikibook[1]. For the compiler, your choices seem to be restricted to GCC (which you try to avoid) and Janus/Ada; the others are too expensive for a hobbyist unless you can persuade the vendors to give you a huge discount. As for the GUI library, the choices follow from your choice of compilers. Most GUI libraries that are available for GNU/Linux are either pure GPL or use a commercial dual-licensing scheme. Other people have already listed a few of these. [1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Installing Since I am also a hobbyist, I personally do not really understand your stance about "unencumbered" libraries; I'm perfectly happy with the GPL. This gives me a much wider range of choices. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-19 13:48 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-12-20 15:41 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 16:24 ` Simon Wright 2010-12-20 17:43 ` Ludovic Brenta 0 siblings, 2 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-20 15:41 UTC (permalink / raw) > > I have been looking over Ada (the 95 variant) and it looks like a > > great language. Are there any free (as in no license restrictions, not > > GPL- anything) GUI libraries? What choices are there for handling > > output besides text? gcc-Ada looks good but I prefer to avoid gcc as > > much as I can and I also haven't found anything but GtkAda that seems > > to be GPLed. > > There is a list of compilers with their licensing terms and some > libraries in the "Ada Programming" wikibook[1]. For the compiler, your > choices seem to be restricted to GCC (which you try to avoid) and > Janus/Ada; Hi. As far as I could tell from Janus's web site, there is no 64 bit Linux support. And I believe I checked last year on my 32 bit Linux system and the test executables didn't run. gcc-Ada is obviously an amazing product with complete coverage (I tried using some of the lesser-used annices and was very pleased) but for my ultimate use it's not going to be acceptable. Maybe it would be if I could pay 20K but that doesn't seem reasonable unless I hit a huge home run and that would be years away. > the others are too expensive for a hobbyist unless you can persuade the > vendors to give you a huge discount. I have seen postings on this newsgroup saying Adacore was about 20,000 USD minimum but I haven't seen pricing (other than Janus who is very upfront and clear- thanks!) from other vendors. If anybody knows how much anything else is, please post it. Is ObjectAda in the ballpark and does it come with GUI and database bindings? > As for the GUI library, the choices follow from your choice of compilers. > Most GUI libraries that are available for GNU/Linux are either pure GPL > or use a commercial dual-licensing scheme. Other people have already > listed a few of these. I saw opengl seems to be under the BSD license but GtkAda is GPL if I understand correctly. I am not interested in dual licensing schemes because I don't like smoke and mirrors. Simple is good. I don't mind paying (when I have the money) because I don't expect people to work for free. But I also don't like anything that's encumbered or has all kinds of legal complexity. > [1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Installing Thanks I'll check the link. > Since I am also a hobbyist, I personally do not really understand your > stance about "unencumbered" libraries; I'm perfectly happy with the > GPL. This gives me a much wider range of choices. I write software for a living but I am interested in Ada for personal use. At this point I want to explore more but I am finding the solution is not coherent, you have to pick a compiler, and then a GUI library, and a database binding, etc. You have to go to different places for all this. I like one stop shopping, it's inline with the way I have always worked. We don't prereq anything except the OS and when we sell you something it contains everything you need to run. You don't have dependencies on any other software. I think Janus did the right thing with CLAW but it's Windows-only if I am not mistaken. I understand the NIX model is to do one thing with a clear purpose and rely on other parties to fill in other needs. This is ok in the open source world but it's not a good commercial or even hobbyist model for many people and it certainly is not acceptable in the marketplace I work in. Our clients also like being able to point one finger and if I sell them something I have to be responsible for all of it and capabable of fixing all of it. I can't blame anybody else or get 3 vendors involved and anything free or open source would be a total show stopper. It would be alot better if a complete solution was packaged together. At this point I'm not even an Ada hobbyist. I would be willing to pay some amount to get started so I can see if I like working with Ada if I had a complete solution. Then later if that solution was lacking and I had a commercial product I wouldn't be opposed to spending more. That's why I talked about hobbyist pricing. I don't have any business (with Ada) and I don't know how far I'll take it. But I do know I don't want to get started with GPL-anything or dual-anything and then get stuck with all kinds of legal mumbo jumbo or have to ship a product with all kinds of prereqs on stuff out of my control. As you said it may be a no-go based on what I can spend. In the business I work in things are very expensive and I also could not have gotten started on my own. Only because I work for big companies do I have access to the resources. Maybe Ada for professional use is the same way- can't get started until you get started! Thanks to everyone for the help. Again, I'm asking about a complete, unencumbered solution for 64 bit Linux, and it would be nice if it could generate code for Windows as well, but not essential. I want to be able to write and debug code, have a capable GUI, and have a good database all in the solution. Proprietary GUI and database are goodness in my view. If such a thing exists I guess it's not cheap! If pricing info (and more details about what exactly is included, in non-jargon) were more available on various sites I guess we could have saved some time here. Thanks for everybody's responses and sorry if I have wasted your time. Because of my posting setup many times messages get lost or delayed. I am sending this more than once since it didn't get posted the last few times. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-20 15:41 ` Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-20 16:24 ` Simon Wright 2010-12-20 19:29 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 17:43 ` Ludovic Brenta 1 sibling, 1 reply; 24+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2010-12-20 16:24 UTC (permalink / raw) Kulin Remailer <remailer@reece.net.au> writes: > Our clients also like being able to point one finger and if I sell > them something I have to be responsible for all of it and capabable of > fixing all of it. I can't blame anybody else or get 3 vendors involved > and anything free or open source would be a total show stopper. It > would be alot better if a complete solution was packaged together. So if your product was based on Microsoft Visual Studio and Oracle, what would be different? I mean, your customers would still be on _your_ back and wouldn't be at all interested in whether the problem was tracable to a Microsoft or Oracle bug. I'm not at all trying to suggest you should change your view of GCC, and it certainly seems to be the case that while FSF GCC Ada isn't encumbered, other packages are. Personally, I've always gone for the "GNAT-modified GPL" or, now, the runtime library exception - http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception-faq.html . ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-20 16:24 ` Simon Wright @ 2010-12-20 19:29 ` Kulin Remailer 0 siblings, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-20 19:29 UTC (permalink / raw) > > Our clients also like being able to point one finger and if I sell > > them something I have to be responsible for all of it and capabable of > > fixing all of it. I can't blame anybody else or get 3 vendors involved > > and anything free or open source would be a total show stopper. It > > would be alot better if a complete solution was packaged together. > > So if your product was based on Microsoft Visual Studio and Oracle, what > would be different? I mean, your customers would still be on _your_ back > and wouldn't be at all interested in whether the problem was tracable to > a Microsoft or Oracle bug. You're right. Thank you for saying this. I don't know enough about what Visual Studio is/does but I understand Oracle is a data base. I don't work with it, but point taken. In the environment I work in we don't have dependencies on any third party software or indeed any software except the OS on which the software runs. In cases where we interoperate with a data base or other product (and almost invariably those products are from the same company who sells the OS) and that data base or product has issues, we have to be able to prove we didn't cause the problem and give the guy who licensed the broken product enough diagnostic info to open a problem with the vendor. Since we code at a low level, tracing and capturing that info isn't usually too difficult to do. We often win points with the customer when it turns out not to be us and we helped anyway. We have cultivated a good relationship with the OS/tools vendor so it hardly ever gets out of hand. We also don't have runtime issues, because we are the runtime- there's nothing between us and the OS. I'm glad you asked these questions because I am starting to realize not only is the platform different but everything is different. In my world if code broke it would either be us or the OS, and it's easy enough in almost all cases to figure out which it is. In the PC world it may well be we have runtime or middleware issues to contend with and it's not just our code and the OS but quite a lot of software in between. I'm not really comfortable with that lack of control, maybe this isn't for me after all ;-) > I'm not at all trying to suggest you should change your view of GCC, and > it certainly seems to be the case that while FSF GCC Ada isn't > encumbered, other packages are. Personally, I've always gone for the > "GNAT-modified GPL" or, now, the runtime library exception - > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception-faq.html . As I said, I think gcc-Ada is outstanding. It was obviously written by guys who were/are leaders in Ada compilation technology and from what I saw in the bit of research I did it may be the only implementation that implements all the annexes (annices). But if I am going to be able to write something for the kinds of accounts we sell to now they won't go for it. It will have to be based on a toolchain that some industrial company is backing up and not have any connections to FSF or open source, those are deal killers in the world I work in. For my own purposes, before I get too fond of gcc-Ada since it's free and so nice, I am concerned that ultimately FSF may change all their compilers and runtime to GPL. I don't know why they haven't dropped this bomb yet. I'm sure people do alot of working developing software and then one day want to sell it as proprietary software. If so they have a big porting job ahead of them to get it off all the GPL stuff they used to prototype it. I don't want to go there. Anyway thanks very much for your post. Your questions are helpful. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-20 15:41 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 16:24 ` Simon Wright @ 2010-12-20 17:43 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-12-21 13:42 ` Fritz Wuehler 1 sibling, 1 reply; 24+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-12-20 17:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Kulin Remailer writes: > I write software for a living but I am interested in Ada for personal > use. [...] I don't have any business (with Ada) and I don't know how > far I'll take it. But I do know I don't want to get started with > GPL-anything or dual-anything and then get stuck with all kinds of > legal mumbo jumbo or have to ship a product with all kinds of prereqs > on stuff out of my control. [...] In the business I work in things are > very expensive and I also could not have gotten started on my > own. Only because I work for big companies do I have access to the > resources. Maybe Ada for professional use is the same way- can't get > started until you get started! I also write software for a living; the organization where I work is a customer of AdaCore. I use GNAT Pro and GtkAda, delivered to us under a license that permits redistribution in binary-only form. Since we do not distribute our software, we don't care about that. What we really pay for is the support. However, most of my postings on this newsgroup are done in my hobbyist capacity. I use GCC (the library of which BTW is "unencumbered") at home. The only reason why I distribute my software is to enhance my reputation as a software engineer; therefore I insist that my beautiful source code be visible to all :) That's why the GPL is a perfect choice for me. So, I do not really buy your justification that you need "unencumbered" licenses at home because "in the business [you] work in", libraries are unencumbered. Are yo sure you're really a hobbyist and not a commercial entity exploring ways to reduce your development costs compared to other languages? Both are perfecly OK but the priorities are different. > [...] Again, I'm asking about a complete, unencumbered solution for 64 > bit Linux, and it would be nice if it could generate code for Windows > as well, but not essential. I want to be able to write and debug code, > have a capable GUI, and have a good database all in the > solution. Proprietary GUI and database are goodness in my view. If > such a thing exists I guess it's not cheap! If pricing info (and more > details about what exactly is included, in non-jargon) were more > available on various sites I guess we could have saved some time > here. Thanks for everybody's responses and sorry if I have wasted your > time. I'm sorry to say that, TTBOMK, what you seek does not exist yet. Several subsets of what you want do exist, however. I think you should investigate the various vendor offerings and decide base on what you're willing to forego. > Because of my posting setup many times messages get lost or delayed. I am > sending this more than once since it didn't get posted the last few times. Do you use a proprietary newsreader? (sorry, couldn't resist). -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-20 17:43 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-12-21 13:42 ` Fritz Wuehler 2010-12-21 17:00 ` Georg Bauhaus 0 siblings, 1 reply; 24+ messages in thread From: Fritz Wuehler @ 2010-12-21 13:42 UTC (permalink / raw) > I also write software for a living; the organization where I work is a > customer of AdaCore. I use GNAT Pro and GtkAda, delivered to us under a > license that permits redistribution in binary-only form. Since we do > not distribute our software, we don't care about that. What we really > pay for is the support. Lucky you! As they say, it's better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it- the ability to distribute royalty-free binaries, that is! > However, most of my postings on this newsgroup are done in my hobbyist > capacity. I use GCC (the library of which BTW is "unencumbered") at > home. The only reason why I distribute my software is to enhance my > reputation as a software engineer; therefore I insist that my beautiful > source code be visible to all :) That's why the GPL is a perfect choice > for me. All well and good but your beautiful source could still be available if you used a BSD or MIT license, wouldn't it not? The only difference is what happens next. gcc-Ada is great but what happens when they pull the plug and change the runtime to GPL instead of LGPL? I'm coming to see I'll need many other components to write a viable product and those may not be available with licenses I'm happy with. > So, I do not really buy your justification that you need "unencumbered" > licenses at home because "in the business [you] work in", libraries are > unencumbered. Are yo sure you're really a hobbyist and not a commercial > entity exploring ways to reduce your development costs compared to other > languages? Both are perfecly OK but the priorities are different. Yes, I'm quite sure what I said was accurate and honest. My thinking until I read the replies here was based on some assumptions that aren't correct on the PC platform and and also based on the fact that until now I haven't sold application software but rather systems software. That makes a big difference because it means we don't have to rely on third party software, middleware, databases, etc. at all from the point of supporting them to make our product work. It's just us and the OS. Apparently it's not reasonable to sell any kind of PC product without some prereqs. I'm simply not used to this model and I'm sure my questions sound strange to those who are. In anything that I do I don't want to rely on encumbered products because it will mean I'll have a porting job ahead of me if I did decide to try to sell it, and possibly have to find replacement products where ones with agreeable (to me) license terms weren't available or even face significant code changes to support entirely new replacements for what was working before. And to be quite honest I don't want any benefit from anything I haven't paid for, especially not if it obliges me to who provides it. If someone wants to give something away with no obligations and say thanks, I'm all for it. I've done a lot of it myself. Whatever I would do on the PC would significantly reduce my development costs as opposed to the unaffordable platform I work on now- even if I bought Green Hills which is so dear to them they refused to discuss pricing with me! I couldn't afford to do the work I do now as a private party, only big companies are involved in the area we work in and I get to use their resources as part of the deal. Because I've been in my market a long time and know the way the customers think and work, I know that I couldn't sell something based on encumbered libraries or products or open source code. They're all into proprietary software and don't mind paying for it. This is where I'm coming from with my questions. > > [...] Again, I'm asking about a complete, unencumbered solution for 64 > > bit Linux, and it would be nice if it could generate code for Windows > > as well, but not essential. I want to be able to write and debug code, > > have a capable GUI, and have a good database all in the > > solution. Proprietary GUI and database are goodness in my view. If > > such a thing exists I guess it's not cheap! If pricing info (and more > > details about what exactly is included, in non-jargon) were more > > available on various sites I guess we could have saved some time > > here. Thanks for everybody's responses and sorry if I have wasted your > > time. > > I'm sorry to say that, TTBOMK, what you seek does not exist yet. Thanks. Clarity is good. > Several subsets of what you want do exist, however. I think you should > investigate the various vendor offerings and decide base on what you're > willing to forego. Sounds quite right. I'll keep trying a bit longer. > > Because of my posting setup many times messages get lost or delayed. I > > am sending this more than once since it didn't get posted the last few > > times. > > Do you use a proprietary newsreader? (sorry, couldn't resist). Well I don't post through my newsreader, if that helps clarify the situation ;-) Separate reading and posting, it's the UNIX way, isn't it? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-21 13:42 ` Fritz Wuehler @ 2010-12-21 17:00 ` Georg Bauhaus 0 siblings, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-12-21 17:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On 21.12.10 14:42, Fritz Wuehler wrote: > All well and good but your beautiful source could still be available if you > used a BSD or MIT license, wouldn't it not? The only difference is what > happens next. > > gcc-Ada is great but what happens when they pull the plug and change the > runtime to GPL instead of LGPL? I'm coming to see I'll need many other > components to write a viable product and those may not be available with > licenses I'm happy with. I think I see your point; in any case, I'd consider what will happen if the owners of any sort of licensing right pull the plug. Their plug. Run-time royalties and pricing in general have been changed in the past such that one would have to look elsewhere; companies have terminated business; companies have been acquired; companies have changed policies; patent fees can be requested as needed; etc. There are "subject to change" phrases. So the next release of GMGPL software now being GPLed is not at all special in this regard: any kind of (licensing or business) change may happen. Any change may make me need human resources that produce the software I need. In a free market I can hope for competition. In terms of land, labor, capital, availability of source is something to build on, at least, regardless of the license. The trade secret issue seems another matter to me, and, without judging the matter, is what really drives the GPL fear, I think. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-18 23:21 A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations Kulin Remailer 2010-12-19 1:00 ` Shark8 2010-12-19 13:48 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-12-19 14:52 ` Stephen Leake 2010-12-20 15:28 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-19 21:04 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-12-20 19:47 ` Tero Koskinen 4 siblings, 1 reply; 24+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-12-19 14:52 UTC (permalink / raw) Kulin Remailer <remailer@reece.net.au> writes: > Are there any free (as in no license restrictions, not GPL- > anything) That definition of "free" is not at all common; what you describe is most widely known as "public domain". As the Free Software Foundation will happily tell you, the GPL is designed to ensure freedom, while public domain is not. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-19 14:52 ` Stephen Leake @ 2010-12-20 15:28 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 15:44 ` Pascal Obry 2010-12-22 9:30 ` Stephen Leake 0 siblings, 2 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-20 15:28 UTC (permalink / raw) > > Are there any free (as in no license restrictions, not GPL- > > anything) > > That definition of "free" is not at all common; what you describe is > most widely known as "public domain". I meant just as I wrote, free of license restrictions, not free as in no-cost, as the rest of my message showed. I didn't expect anything in the public domain would meet my needs. If you read my post I'm sure you realize that, so it would seem you're just taking issue with one statement, out of context, with an eye towards proseletyzing (did I spell that right) on your Church of "free software". Don't waste your time on me, I know better! > As the Free Software Foundation will happily tell you, the GPL is > designed to ensure freedom, while public domain is not. The GPL is most certainly not designed to insure freedom, it's designed to enforce their ideas of software as a socialist enterprise. To the extent that otherwise sensible people consider viral, forcible open source licenses freedom, they've been somewhat successful ;-) Just because they redefine words whose meaning is not in question and repeat those falsehoods endlessly doesn't mean we are all silly enough to buy their bill of goods. Thanks and have a lovely day! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-20 15:28 ` Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-20 15:44 ` Pascal Obry 2010-12-22 9:30 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2010-12-20 15:44 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Kulin Remailer Le 20/12/2010 16:28, Kulin Remailer a écrit : > I meant just as I wrote, free of license restrictions, not free as in > no-cost, as the rest of my message showed. I didn't expect anything in the > public domain would meet my needs. If you read my post I'm sure you realize > that, so it would seem you're just taking issue with one statement, out of > context, with an eye towards proseletyzing (did I spell that right) on your proselytizing > Church of "free software". Don't waste your time on me, I know better! Ok, but why ask if you know better? Stephen response was quite sensible if you asked me. Now you can probably describe the license you are after since you know better... In any case I can't help you as now I'm quite confuse about your question! > The GPL is most certainly not designed to insure freedom, it's designed to > enforce their ideas of software as a socialist enterprise. To the extent > that otherwise sensible people consider viral, forcible open source > licenses freedom, they've been somewhat successful ;-) Just because they > redefine words whose meaning is not in question and repeat those falsehoods > endlessly doesn't mean we are all silly enough to buy their bill of goods. Please do not play troll here. Thanks. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://www.obry.net - http://v2p.fr.eu.org --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" --| --| gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key F949BD3B ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-20 15:28 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 15:44 ` Pascal Obry @ 2010-12-22 9:30 ` Stephen Leake 2010-12-22 12:10 ` Kulin Remailer 1 sibling, 1 reply; 24+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-12-22 9:30 UTC (permalink / raw) Kulin Remailer <remailer@reece.net.au> writes: >> > Are there any free (as in no license restrictions, not GPL- >> > anything) >> >> That definition of "free" is not at all common; what you describe is >> most widely known as "public domain". > > I meant just as I wrote, free of license restrictions, not free as in > no-cost, as the rest of my message showed. I didn't expect anything in the > public domain would meet my needs. If you read my post I'm sure you realize > that, No, I can't tell from the rest of your post what license terms you want. You want a cheap compiler, and you don't want GPL. Otherwise, you just say "unencumbered". If there were a hypothetical Ada vendor that sold a compiler with a license of "you can't distribute a binary with our compiler runtime without paying a royalty", would that be "unencumbered"? Or if the license said "you can distribute a binary with our compiler runtime, but you cannot distribute the sources to the runtime"? Both of those are "license restrictions", and are "encumbered" from my point of view. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-22 9:30 ` Stephen Leake @ 2010-12-22 12:10 ` Kulin Remailer 0 siblings, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-22 12:10 UTC (permalink / raw) > You want a cheap compiler, and you don't want GPL. Otherwise, you just > say "unencumbered". I don't know what things cost because I haven't ever seen pricing aside from Janus. My willingness to spend around that price is based on the fact that I only know one price point. I know of several other PC based compilers (not Ada) that range from 200 to 600 dollars. So I have no idea what's cheap or not in the Ada world. Green Hills refused to give me a number when I called. I wonder if their pricing is based on the customer's balance sheet. > If there were a hypothetical Ada vendor that sold a compiler with a > license of "you can't distribute a binary with our compiler runtime > without paying a royalty", would that be "unencumbered"? No, but it would probably be ok since presumably if you sell code you just add the price of the royalty and feed it back to the vendor. > Or if the license said "you can distribute a binary with our compiler > runtime, but you cannot distribute the sources to the runtime"? That sounds pretty normal and I wouldn't consider it an encumbrance. A limitation is not necessarily an encumbrance, depending on one's view. > Both of those are "license restrictions", and are "encumbered" from my > point of view. As I wrote in this thread I'm not familiar with the environment most of you are working in and my questions reflect this ignorance. But at the end of the day having to open your source code and potentially distribute it are the biggest encumbrances of all, your clarifications notwithstanding. That's the encumbrance I want to avoid. Again, I think that was obvious or I would not have mentioned that I'm not looking for GPL-anything. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-18 23:21 A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations Kulin Remailer ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2010-12-19 14:52 ` Stephen Leake @ 2010-12-19 21:04 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-12-20 16:05 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 19:47 ` Tero Koskinen 4 siblings, 1 reply; 24+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-12-19 21:04 UTC (permalink / raw) On 12/19/10 12:21 AM, Kulin Remailer wrote: > What Ada toolchains are available for 64 bit Linux that can be used to > generate 32 or 64 bit Linux/UNIX executables that are in a hobbyist's price > range (let's say up to 1000 USD). The Windows edition of Aonix/Atego's ObjectAda compiler used to be in this range for non-big-project use. (Not sure about word size.) Maybe they can arrange for a GNU/Linux edition, too, if you explain the matter. AdaMagic by SofCheck might be available on similar terms, provided you don't want a support contract. (It produces C as the backend language, ironically; word size might thus depend on what the C compiler will produce.) > Do they include their own GUI libraries? ObjectAda has typical traditional Unix GUI bindings, I think, but I don't know first hand. > Basically I want to know what kind of investment I need to make to have an > unencumbered Ada95 toolchain with all the features I need to write and > deploy general applications without having to go fishing for libraries. All compilers I know are available on licensing terms and conditions. Almost none requires that your sources will have to be made available to recipients of your binaries, including FSF GNAT's. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-19 21:04 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-12-20 16:05 ` Kulin Remailer 0 siblings, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-20 16:05 UTC (permalink / raw) Thanks for a very helpful post. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-18 23:21 A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations Kulin Remailer ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2010-12-19 21:04 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-12-20 19:47 ` Tero Koskinen 2010-12-20 22:28 ` Simon Wright 2010-12-21 0:14 ` Fritz Wuehler 4 siblings, 2 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Tero Koskinen @ 2010-12-20 19:47 UTC (permalink / raw) On 18 Dec 2010 23:21:41 -0000 Kulin Remailer wrote: > Hi, > > I have been looking over Ada (the 95 variant) and it looks like a great > language. ... > What Ada toolchains are available for 64 bit Linux that can be used to > generate 32 or 64 bit Linux/UNIX executables that are in a hobbyist's price > range (let's say up to 1000 USD). I think your choices are following: 1) GCC/GNAT from FSF (http://gcc.gnu.org/). It is distributed under GMGPL (similar to LGPL) so you can link to it without needing to license your own program/binary under GPL. Available for almost every platform/architecture. 2) GNAT GPL from AdaCore (http://libre.adacore.com/) It is distributed under plain GPL, so it infects GPL into your binaries. In some cases, you might need to license the source also under GPL, but it is not entirely clear to me what those cases are. Available for Linux/Mac/Windows at least. 3) Janus/Ada from RRSoftware (http://www.rrsoftware.com/) Personal edition costs about $300 and professional edition $500. It is available for 32-bit Windows only, but I have succesfully ran it under Wine on 64-bit and 32-bit Fedora 14, and on 64-bit Windows 7. The latest stable release (3.1.1d) is somewhat buggy, so be sure that you negotiate free update to the next release (I have beta version of 3.1.2 and it is much better than 3.1.1d). 4) ObjectAda from Aonix (http://www.atego.com/products/aonix-objectada-for-linux/) Aonix (now Atego) folks might be able to provide you a feature limited version of their ObjectAda compiler for free. I have seen full compiler price being somewhere between $3k and $10k. I have ObjectAda V7.2.2 Special Edition (2k LOC limit per file) for Windows and while it works, the source code limitation is slightly annoying. 5) ICC Ada from Irvine (http://www.irvine.com/). I am pretty sure that they have a Linux version of their compiler or they can at least with relatively small effort create a version which generates binaries for 32/64-bit Linux (i386/x86_64). Although, I don't know are they selling the Linux version or is it just for internal use. I have tested their time limited version of Ada 2005 compiler for Windows and it was pretty good. It was able to spot some of my coding errors which GNAT couldn't find. > Do they include any data base bindings? I think only GNAT/Adacore provides database bindings. With others you need to use bindings from 3rd parties. One example is my sqlite3-ada: http://hg.stronglytyped.org/sqlite3-ada It works with Janus/Ada and GNAT. (Probably also with Irvine, not sure since I haven't tested.) There are also other sqlite3-ada bindings (with same name!) around, but those are usually meant only for GNAT. -- Tero Koskinen - http://iki.fi/tero.koskinen/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-20 19:47 ` Tero Koskinen @ 2010-12-20 22:28 ` Simon Wright 2010-12-21 10:35 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-21 0:14 ` Fritz Wuehler 1 sibling, 1 reply; 24+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2010-12-20 22:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Tero Koskinen <tero.koskinen@iki.fi> writes: > 1) > GCC/GNAT from FSF (http://gcc.gnu.org/). > It is distributed under GMGPL (similar to LGPL) so you can link to it > without needing to license your own program/binary under GPL. > Available for almost every platform/architecture. > > 2) > GNAT GPL from AdaCore (http://libre.adacore.com/) > It is distributed under plain GPL, so it infects GPL into your > binaries. In some cases, you might need to license the source > also under GPL, but it is not entirely clear to me what those > cases are. Available for Linux/Mac/Windows at least. AdaCore's support isn't cheap. However, they do do evaluation contracts, you'd have to talk to them about costs. Supported users get excellent e-mail support and, if necessary, wavefront releases. The toolchain and libraries can be used to create proprietary products (not GPL-restricted). GNAT GPL comes from the same code base and is released approximately annually; you can report bugs to AdaCore, indeed they welcome them, but you're not going to get assistance from them; you will get it here or at StackOverflow. You get the same libraries as with the supported product, but they and the runtime are released under the full GPL. FSF GCC is maintained (mainly) by AdaCore; they usually do a backport of their code base once per major GCC release (4.4, 4.5 ..). The compiler can be used to create proprietary products; we don't know what discussions took place when AdaCore decided to remove the runtime exceptions from the Ada runtime in GNAT GPL and FSF didn't, but I'd guess it's unlikely FSF would change. Of course, I'm not betting money on that. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-20 22:28 ` Simon Wright @ 2010-12-21 10:35 ` Kulin Remailer 0 siblings, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Kulin Remailer @ 2010-12-21 10:35 UTC (permalink / raw) Thanks again for all the info! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
* Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations 2010-12-20 19:47 ` Tero Koskinen 2010-12-20 22:28 ` Simon Wright @ 2010-12-21 0:14 ` Fritz Wuehler 1 sibling, 0 replies; 24+ messages in thread From: Fritz Wuehler @ 2010-12-21 0:14 UTC (permalink / raw) Thanks for a brilliant post with tons of info. I'm saving it for reference. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 24+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2010-12-22 14:46 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 24+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2010-12-18 23:21 A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations Kulin Remailer 2010-12-19 1:00 ` Shark8 2010-12-19 2:55 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2010-12-19 9:06 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-12-22 14:46 ` anon 2010-12-19 9:28 ` Pascal Obry 2010-12-19 13:48 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-12-20 15:41 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 16:24 ` Simon Wright 2010-12-20 19:29 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 17:43 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-12-21 13:42 ` Fritz Wuehler 2010-12-21 17:00 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-12-19 14:52 ` Stephen Leake 2010-12-20 15:28 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 15:44 ` Pascal Obry 2010-12-22 9:30 ` Stephen Leake 2010-12-22 12:10 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-19 21:04 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-12-20 16:05 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-20 19:47 ` Tero Koskinen 2010-12-20 22:28 ` Simon Wright 2010-12-21 10:35 ` Kulin Remailer 2010-12-21 0:14 ` Fritz Wuehler
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