From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,101730fbd6919745 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-04-15 22:59:53 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!psinet-eu-nl!psiuk-p4!uknet!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada & .Net (Rotor) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 09:19:07 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <4519e058.0204080645.32b63ee1@posting.google.com> <7vvgb0ngnk.fsf@vlinux.voxelvision.no> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1018876748 4227 136.170.200.133 (15 Apr 2002 13:19:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Apr 2002 13:19:08 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:22583 Date: 2002-04-15T13:19:08+00:00 List-Id: "Larry Kilgallen" wrote in message news:iDK7+9+GKkgk@eisner.encompasserve.org... > > I realize too much effort has already been spent discussing > the meaning of "Open Source", but to me it seems that source > described as "Open" should work with any compiler that matches > a language standard. > That might be a bit too stringent a requirement. Even though Ada is one of the best and most portable standards around, it still allows for quite a bit of implementation variance even within the things that are "standard". Throw on top of that the implementation specifics of connecting to an OS or other utilities and how that might vary between implementations and platforms and I think you're just in a morass where anything but the most trivial applications wouldn't qualify as "Open Source" > > So some popular software that happens to be Open Source today > is hard to build on Windows. Certainly that is an attribute of > that particular software and not of Open Source. > One might allow for the fact that (probably) the largest body of "Open Source" software is being built by folks in the Linux or other flavors of Unix environments. Clearly those apps are going to have a big tendency to depend on Unix. Not to "blame" anyone - but it does tend to cause problems for Windows users who might want to utilize that software. Of course, one answer is for more Windows users to produce open source variants of these popular programs. Could that be an opportunity for Ada? Identify a handful of Open Source products that work on Linux/Unix but not on Windows & produce similar apps that would work on Windows? (Or both, using something like GtkAda?) > Without checking, I will presume for the sake of discussion that > David Botton's COM software for Ada is Open Source. Probably > it is not hard to build on Windows. Possibly it is quite > hard to build (to the point of doing something useful) on Unix. A reasonable observation and again something that points to a niche that Ada could exploit within the Open Source world. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com