A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Kulin Remailer]

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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Shark8]

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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

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

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

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

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[anon]

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/ 

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Pascal Obry]

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

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Ludovic Brenta]

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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Kulin Remailer]

> > 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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Simon Wright]

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 .

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Kulin Remailer]

> > 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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Ludovic Brenta]

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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Fritz Wuehler]

> 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?

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Georg Bauhaus]

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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Stephen Leake]

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

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Kulin Remailer]

> > 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!

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Pascal Obry]

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

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Stephen Leake]

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

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Kulin Remailer]

> 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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Georg Bauhaus]

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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Kulin Remailer]

Thanks for a very helpful post.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Tero Koskinen]

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/

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Simon Wright]

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.

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Kulin Remailer]

Thanks again for all the info!

Re: A few questions on Ada and Ada implementations

[Fritz Wuehler]

Thanks for a brilliant post with tons of info. I'm saving it for reference.