Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[droiddermo]

I'm a single developer. As far as I understand there is no free Ada compiler that allows me to develop free or commercial closed source applications. What options do I have? What option is the cheapest one? What is the best choice for a single developer in your opinion?

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[Niklas Holsti]

On 14-05-23 19:45 , droiddermo@gmail.com wrote:
> I'm a single developer. As far as I understand there is no free Ada
> compiler that allows me to develop free or commercial closed source
> applications. What options do I have? What option is the cheapest
> one? What is the best choice for a single developer in your opinion?

The version of GNAT that comes from the FSF (Free Software Foundation)
lets you develop and sell closed-source, commercial SW. When I used to
develop such SW, as a single developer, I used the FSF-GNAT in Debian
and Ubuntu for Linux hosts, and the FSF-GNAT in MinGW (not MinGW-64,
which I did not try) for Windows hosts. They worked well enough for me,
but may not be quite as up to date with Ada 2012 as the GPL version of
GNAT from AdaCore. That was not a problem for me -- I am slow to take up
novelties.

(And thanks, as always, to Ludovic Brenta and the rest of the Debian Ada
team for their unselfish work to support Ada in Debian.)

The least expensive non-GNAT Ada compiler that I know is Janus/Ada from
RR Software. I evaluated it some years ago; at that time, it was
Windows-only and had some limitations that prevented it from compiling
all of my application. If you design your applications keeping in mind
the limitations of Janus/Ada, I think it would work well for you. In the
small comparison I made, Janus/Ada generated code that was quite
comparable in size and speed to the code from GNAT.

-- 
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
      .      @       .

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[droiddermo]

Thank you! I thought that GNAT that comes with Ubuntu and MinGW-w64 is GPL as well. I used mingw-builds on windows, and it works well for both x86 and x64 targets. Haven't try GNAT from Ubuntu repositories yet. And what about libraries and tools? Can I use GPS to develop closed source application? Is GtkAda or QtAda suitable for closed source development?

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[Niklas Holsti]

On 14-05-24 10:15 , droiddermo@gmail.com wrote:
> Thank you! I thought that GNAT that comes with Ubuntu and MinGW-w64
> is GPL as well. 

I answered according to my understanding, but things may change. To be
sure, you should check the licence/copyright info given in the source
code for the system you will use.

> I used mingw-builds on windows, and it works well for
> both x86 and x64 targets.

Ok, good to know.

> And what about libraries and tools? Can I use GPS to develop
> closed source application? Is GtkAda or QtAda suitable for
> closed source development?

Sorry, I don't use them, and I don't know the answer. But I believe that
the GtkAda from AdaCore is only for GPL, unless you pay for a commercial
licence.

-- 
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
      .      @       .

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2014-05-24, Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid> wrote:
> On 14-05-24 10:15 , droiddermo@gmail.com wrote:
>> And what about libraries and tools? Can I use GPS to develop
>> closed source application? Is GtkAda or QtAda suitable for
>> closed source development?
>
> Sorry, I don't use them, and I don't know the answer. But I believe that
> the GtkAda from AdaCore is only for GPL, unless you pay for a commercial
> licence.
>

The public version of GtkAda was originally GMGPL (or similar) but
changed to pure GPL around the GTK 2.4 timeframe.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[droiddermo]

Can you suggest some good GUI library that can be used in closed-source development? Maybe QtAda or something else?

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[gautier_niouzes]

Le dimanche 25 mai 2014 10:41:36 UTC+2, droid...@gmail.com a écrit :
> Can you suggest some good GUI library that can be used in closed-source development? Maybe QtAda or something else?

I you want to target Windows-only for the GUI layer, this one:
http://sf.net/projects/gnavi/

_________________________ 
Gautier's Ada programming 
http://gautiersblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Ada 
NB: follow the above link for a valid e-mail address 

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[droiddermo]

> I you want to target Windows-only for the GUI layer
I'm sorry, I should have said it in the first place: I need crossplatform (Windows, Linux, Mac OSX) GUI library, that is suitable for closed source development. I was thinking about using Qt as it is LGPL. Is QtAda bindings LGPL? Is it good and well supported? Or it would be better for me to implement application logic in Ada as a shared library and implement Qt-based GUI in C++ or QtQuick?

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[Luke A. Guest]

<droiddermo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I you want to target Windows-only for the GUI layer
> I'm sorry, I should have said it in the first place: I need crossplatform
> (Windows, Linux, Mac OSX) GUI library, that is suitable for closed source
> development. I was thinking about using Qt as it is LGPL. Is QtAda
> bindings LGPL? Is it good and well supported? Or it would be better for
> me to implement application logic in Ada as a shared library and
> implement Qt-based GUI in C++ or QtQuick?

Iirc godunko's at Ada is GPL

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[Simon Wright]

droiddermo@gmail.com writes:

> Can I use GPS to develop closed source application?

Yes.

I don't know about Ubuntu, but when I use GPS it's the Libre one from
AdaCore (because it's just too painful to build GPS from sources, and
it'd be GPL anyway); so I'd have the FSF GCC on my PATH and call up GPS
explicitly, something like

   $ echo $PATH
   /opt/gcc-4.9.0/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/
   $ /opt/gnat-gpl-2014/bin/gps &

You can check that it's picking up the right compiler in Project > 
Edit Project Properties, look for Toolchains in the Languages tab.

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[björn lundin]

Den lördagen den 24:e maj 2014 kl. 09:15:23 UTC+2 skrev droid...@gmail.com:
> Thank you! I thought that GNAT that comes with Ubuntu and MinGW-w64 is GPL as well.

you might be interested in this page

<http://people.debian.org/~lbrenta/debian-ada-policy.html#The-variants-of-GNAT>

It explains the history and versions of gnat well

--
/Björn

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[Dan'l Miller]

On Saturday, May 24, 2014 5:51:18 AM UTC-5, björn lundin wrote:
> Den lördagen den 24:e maj 2014 kl. 09:15:23 UTC+2 skrev droid...@gmail.com:
> you might be interested in this page
> <http://people.debian.org/~lbrenta/debian-ada-policy.html#The-variants-of-GNAT>
> It explains the history and versions of gnat well

Ludovic Brenta, if you are reading this, I would be interested in seeing updated entries on that webpage through current times (GNAT GPL Edition 2014, GCC 4.9.0, etc), when you get to it among all your other valuable work.  Thank you (and teammates) for all your work over the years on keeping GMGPLed FSF GNAT widely distributed & maintained.

Re: Commercial/closed source development in Ada?

[Tero Koskinen]

23.5.2014 20:40, Niklas Holsti wrote:
> On 14-05-23 19:45 , droiddermo@gmail.com wrote:
>> I'm a single developer. As far as I understand there is no free Ada
>> compiler that allows me to develop free or commercial closed source
>> applications. What options do I have? What option is the cheapest
>> one? What is the best choice for a single developer in your
>> opinion?
...
> The least expensive non-GNAT Ada compiler that I know is Janus/Ada
> from RR Software. I evaluated it some years ago; at that time, it was
> Windows-only and had some limitations that prevented it from
> compiling all of my application. If you design your applications
> keeping in mind the limitations of Janus/Ada, I think it would work
> well for you. In the small comparison I made, Janus/Ada generated
> code that was quite comparable in size and speed to the code from
> GNAT.

Another vote for Janus/Ada. Most (all?, excluding AVR things) of my code
compiles with Janus/Ada, so it is possible to overcome the limitations
(and bugs) with reasonable effort. And the price (~$200..$500) is
affortable for a single developer.

Probably the biggest limitation is missing Ada 20xx support. In
addition, there are some nasty bugs which prevent you from doing
some things (don't ask for details, I have happily lost the track
what is fixed and what isn't in the latest version of Janus/Ada ;) ).

RR Software (Randy) also does lot of other related Ada (standardization)
work, so sometimes it is frustratingly slow to get some specific bug fixed.

Yours,
  Tero

PS. Sometimes you see clearly the age of Janus/Ada. For example,
in 2009 I got my Janus/Ada version delivered on *floppies*. Later
versions have been available via Internet luckily.