Re: POLL: Would you use Ada more if...

[pontius@btv.MBI.com.invalid ()]

In article <3d5cfa8e.16958234@news.demon.co.uk>,
	john.nospam@nospamassen.nospamdemon.co.uk (John McCabe) writes:
> On Fri, 16 Aug 2002 14:44:22 +0200, Preben Randhol
> <randhol+ada@pvv.org> wrote:
>
>>> Ask an accountant :-)
>
>>Say you want Debian GNU/Linux you can buy it as a CD and with printed
>>Manual from a shop,
>
> Oh yes! That's right. But where can you buy e.g. GNAT (public) on a CD
> in a box with a printed manual?
>
Assuming GNAT has made it into one of the archive collections, there
are places like Cheapbytes where you can buy those. No printed manuals,
and likely a half-dozen CDs, but pick the right set and GNAT would be
somewhere on one of them.

Seems to me that someone could set up a tiny business on the side in
pseudo-competition with ACT in the sub-10-developer arena. Just begin
by selling CDs and hardcopy manuals, maybe support for the public
code version. Feed the fixes back to ACT in a symbiotic fashion. Don't
know how much money there'd be in such a niche, though.

>> but there is no other warrenties from that you
>>download from the net.
>
>>Besides relying on CD-ROM releases only is
>>inherently less secure than also using the net for updates.
>
> I don't disagree with these comments, but I'm a software
> engineer/developer, not an accountant.
>
> If you go to your [large] company's accountat and say "there you go,
> I've spent $1000 on software" and they say, "well, where is it?" and
> you say "it's a file on my PC" what do you think they're going to say
> to that?
>
Around here, you don't say, "I've spent..."  You signify your wish to
spend money on software, send it up through the bureaucracy, and
eventually it becomes a Contract.  Hopefully someone else has bought
from the company before, in which case getting the Contract is easy.
Otherwise, the lawyers have their fun with the licensing provisions for
a while, until you hopefully get a Contract.

Once you have a Contract, the accountants are happy.  They don't get
hung up on CDs, boxes, downloads or whatever. In some ways, it seems
more enlightened, in other ways, a giant pain.

Dale Pontius
NOT speaking for IBM