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: 2002-04-17 17:08:38 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!freenix!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!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: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 09:53:35 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <3CB94312.5040802@snafu.de> <4519e058.0204150645.62003096@posting.google.com> <3CBCEB15.E104D1F5@adaworks.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1019051616 21465 136.170.200.133 (17 Apr 2002 13:53:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 Apr 2002 13:53:36 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:22690 Date: 2002-04-17T13:53:36+00:00 List-Id: "Richard Riehle" wrote in message news:3CBCEB15.E104D1F5@adaworks.com... > > And who was going to pay Randy and RR Software for their effort in > developing CLAW? It is all well and good to want free software, > but someone, somewhere needs to pay for it. One reason we don't > see more bindings to more environments for Ada is the widespread > reluctance of people to commit resources when there is no financial > benefit. Even GNAT will disappear if ACT discovers there is > no financial reward in supporting it. > Unfortunately, there sometimes seems to be a perception that because some software can be downloaded and used free of charge, that it must be possible for *all* software to be downloaded and used free of charge. It really stands in violation of some gas law I used to know back in high school - the one about there being no free lunch? :-) To some extent, I think this gets fostered by the FSF having a slight bias against business & capitalism. What gets lost in the rhetoric is that most of us don't go into work every day and write software for the companies we work for and then refuse to accept a paycheck at the end of the week. Software costs money to develop, enhance and maintain. Who should pay for that? It seems fair that it ought to be the people getting the benefit of using it. Giving it away "free" is really just a strategy to get payment in some other manner - like "Free Beer" might be a strategy to sell hot dogs. Any way you slice it, *someone* has to pay. GNAT isn't "free" - its just subsidized by the companies that buy support from ACT. We get it at no cost because someone else pays for its development & maintenance. But not every product can subsist on that model and even GNAT could eventually fall on the wayside if there were insufficient numbers of companies willing to buy support. > Tom Moran is right when he complains that so many have spent so > much energy creating partial implementations that discourage the > use of CLAW instead of getting on board and adding to its already > powerful set of capabilities. I suspect Randy would not turn down > any offer of help in developing additional packages to extend the > CLAW software. > Perhaps enhancing CLAW and making it the de facto "standard" for OS interfacing (at least on Windows - could it ever become more general?) might be a really good idea. As you observed before, RR Software can't be expected to do that without some kind of remuneration either from direct sales or some other mechanism. The problem is one of incentivizing people to add to the product. Will people jump up and beg for the chance to help develop a product in their spare time so that someone else can sell it? If it were "free software" would they be more eager to do so? But then we just get back to that problem of who is going to pay the freight, right? So maybe RR Software could find a way of partnering with the spare-time developers & get a bigger, better product as a result? Dare I suggest the Ada Developer's Cooperative License as a mechanism to do that? :-) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com