Why is the DOE selling AdaSage ????

Why is the DOE selling AdaSage ????

[agate!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!eff!world!]

    There seems to be a fractal nature to the idioticness of the DoD's
software reuse efforts.  On an endless number of scales, the incompetence
remains the same.

    Case in point.  A few years ago a nice library of Ada source code,
Adasage, came out of the DoD.  I heard many things about it, but never
actually looked at the code because for awhile it was being made free
to DoD personnel, but others like me had to pay for it.  Later on I think
the policy was changed, but by then I had lost interest.  That it was
never posted to the Internet should have led to at least one courtmartial.

    Anyways, a few weeks ago, I came across the following abstract of a
new software item available for sale from the DOE's software sales center
at Oak Ridge:

     ADASAGE4.0, Ada Application Development System - designed to
     facilitate rapid and professional construction of applications
     written in Ada on microcomputers. Applications may vary in size
     from small to large multi-program systems. ADASAGE4.0 consists of
     a collection of re-usable libraries for database management and
     form and report processing utilities having the following
     capabilities: basic universal type and function definitions;
     sequential file input/output; terminal and file input/output; DOS
     system command execution; data movement and fill; string
     manipulation; math libraries; bit manipulation; a relational
     database utility; data validation; menu form and window
     procedures; report generation; sort/merge, time, and date
     functions; sound production; editing; and index rebuilding. These
     capabilities are integrated to allow the development of an
     efficient system.  IBM PC/AT; Alsys ADA 4.33 (92%) and Assembler
     (8%); DOE, NRC, DOD.


It's bad enough that the DoD isn't making the money instead of the DoD,
but if the real goal is to promote Ada use, why not post it to the Internet
and flood the shareware bulletin boards.

Gregory Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
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Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178