Re: GNAT GPL is not shareware

[David Botton <david@botton.com>]

> AdaCore is doing the only thing that makes sense to monitize Ada. If there 
> was any other way that made sense, my guess is that AdaCore would have tried it already.

That is unfortunately not the case. They went direct from truly open -> lockin' using GPL as the gun.

Had they actually tried other possibilities like building a vertical solutions market, charging for higher level tools, etc. maybe we could start to say they even tried. They went from libre -> Sony overnight.


> Sadly, I don't think there is much future for doing things well, because for 
> that one can neither sell maintenance nor get much effort for improvement. 
> Which ultimately leads to a bleak future for humanity, IMHO.

Not true building a vertical market on a libre base, offering other services around the language and products, brokering consulting services, job placement services, training, etc. I can think of many other ways to monitize your work on an open source compiler (I say work on because the compiler was and is not the product, that falsehood alone has blinded them to innovation so far).

The one guaranteed long term failure plan history has proven out many times is customer lock-in methods...  I don't predict doom for them, only because enough people care about Ada to try and prevent it, despite themselves.

David Botton