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,ac39a12d5faf5b14 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-04-16 17:25:47 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!kibo.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet!psiuk-p2!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: Development process in the Ada community Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 09:31:04 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <3CB94312.5040802@snafu.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1018963866 12129 136.170.200.133 (16 Apr 2002 13:31:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 16 Apr 2002 13:31:06 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:22620 Date: 2002-04-16T13:31:06+00:00 List-Id: Lots of models have been tried with mixed success. How exactly do you say "Here, you can have this product free of charge, but if you feel like it you can give me some money..." and get that to generate the kind of revenue needed to continue to support & enhance the product? For something like Gnat, the model is "You can have the product free of charge, but enough people will want support to pay for it and that keeps the project afloat." It apparently works for a compiler reasonably well, but lots of products have little to zero demand for support. Others have tried "You can have the source code free of charge, but if you'd like pre-compiled versions with documentation, we can do that for a price..." That works for other things like Linux or RTEMS. Crippled versions of things at no charge with full-features available at a price has sometimes worked - but that doesn't work well if you are of the One True Religion of "Open Source" :-) At the end of the day, products need people to develop/enhance/support them and those people need to do things like eat and pay rent, so *somebody* is going to have to pay the freight. Even the "free" software out there is paid for via the developer(s) generosity with their time or their employer's subsidizing the effort in some manner. I'm of the belief that if Ada developers find a way to make Ada development pay, it will create more Ada developers - and that's a good thing for all of us. (How many times do we see posts with some version of "Ada may be cool, but why should I waste my time learning it if I can't get a job doing it....?" :-) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com "Georg Bauhaus" wrote in message news:a9gnce$9td$2@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de... > > Is there no way of asking business clients to pay you for your > work even if the license doesn't require them (or others) to do > so? I, for one, have no problem of paying craftspeople if I need > their service, and I think I'm not alone. >