Re: can one build commercial applications with latest gnat and other licenses related questions...

[M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> writes:

> On 25 Jun 2006 22:49:48 +0200, M E Leypold
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> declaimed
> the following in comp.lang.ada:
> 
> > 
> > Completely right. But: There is also the case when the customer wants
> > the developer(s) to sign an NDA. Usually (happened too me) these
> > customers are deeply uneasy with the GPL around. They fear (and I

> 	Don't know how cost effective it would be -- but, from my viewpoint,

It wouldn't.

> at least, if a customer wants an NDA in the contract negotiations, the
> developer could bring in the cost of the GnatPro license (with compiler
> system with license treated as part of the deliverables, or obtained by
> the customer with developer working onsite)

Well. The calculation would be (as I have shown in another post) that
the customer would want to maintain the software for something from 3
to 10 years which with your method would equate to $45.000 to
$150.000. Obviously that only has now impact to the customers view on
cost effectiveness of the project if that amount is negligible only if
the project volume is much large than this amount of money, which
would certainly be > $1.000.000.

Let's face it: We have a restriction here: Go GPL or pay.

I'd wish that people would stop inventing ingenious methods of either
circumventing this restrictiction (distributing mangled source or
tying the customer into other dependencies that make him refraining
from distributing further) or methods of hiding the costs (let the
customer pay the compiler support).

There is a restriction. It stands to reason that it kills a number of
projects that would otherwise been economically viable (to the
satisfaction of developer and customer) and can now not be done ore
with costs that make them non viable.

That much, I think, is undisputed. What is disputed, though, is,
wether it should be like this. I cannot say anything on that topic
anymore: There are 2 different schools here. One holds that a free
tool allows to produce works with the tool that can be sold, even as
"closed works". The other holds that "free can only begat free" and
that using free tools anyone should not expect to be able to do more
than to produce free tools and probably free services. Both schools
found their respective view on different evaluations of the situation
and probably on different underlying ethical concepts as well (there
is always a strong ethical undercurrent in the arguments there). I
don't thing it will be possible to mediate between these two schools
of thought. 

Personally I think that "free can only begat free" is contradictory:
ACT (i.e.) bases their services on a free compiler, their services are
not free though. Same applies to closed source businesses using
Apache, Linux, MySQL for working tools. Nobody seriously suggest, that
only non profit organisation should be allowed the use of GPL software
from now on. All that as nothing to do with copyright, admittedly, but
it makes understandable why it is necessary to draw a line between
"producing a derived work" (copyright applies, GPL can be enforced)
and "using a tool" (that the tool incorporates parts of itself in the
product and thus makes it a derived work would be an unwanted effect
in this case, hence the birth of LGPL). All in all I don't think that
the GPL is being well served by not drawing that line clearly: Much of
the FUD around the "viral nature of GPL", like "use a GPL tool and
your source must be free" is based on exactly these fringe cases where
either the authors of some software didn't care enough to ensure
clarify the case or did purposely use the GPL to lock their software
away from what they considered unfair profiting.

But back to the main theme:

I stipulate that the projects killed by the restriction are actually
those whose killing harm the case of proliferating Ada most: They take
place in the area, where people shift from purely hobbyist or
educational use to the first commercial applications of Ada and start
to build their infrastructure for future projects.

Let me also add: Having tought software engineering courses at german
universities I wouldn't try to introduce Ada as a teaching language
there today: Whereas the language has all it should have, the skill
set acquired by the students would be only usable in very restricted
scenarios and this in a small market anyway. It simply wouldn't be
responsible to restrict the student's future to the following choices:

  - Work for DASA or ESA or for the defense industry.

  - Try to build your own pure Ada shob (w/o previous experience: hard)
    with whopping fixed costs for the Ada part of your shop.
 
  - Restrict yourself to producing GPLed software only in your shops
    "primary system language".


> 	The GPL curse applies to small independent developers seeking
> to produce generally marketable products -- the next Quicken, or
> VersaCheck, for example... Given the prohibitive cost of obtaining a
> closed-distribution capability for GNAT, they might easily chose to
> substitute some other language -- M$ C++ compiler without the
> VisualStudio environment appears to be available for the download;
> Sun's Java seems to be behind a number of applications...

That sums it up nicely. You might substitute "they might easily chose"
by "they chose", because that is what the are regularly doing. How do
you think that programming languages are chosen? I suggest the
following considerations:

 - Above all: How expensive is an environment with "closed
   distribution capability" (CDC)?

 - Can I use the language as single system language, i.e. even if my
   current application isn't graphical in nature, would I be able to
   program graphical applications? Would I be able to iterface to the
   Operating system?

 - Which libraries (with CDC) are available?

 - Can I find developers / programmers / collaborators in that
   language?

 - How many compilers / build systems are there in the market? Would I
   be able to fall back to another vendors build system in some years?
   Would I be able to fall back to community supported software for at
   least the last years of low intensity maintenance?

 - And what are the language advantages / disadvantages?

The last point creates a kind of vicious circle actually: No CDC ->
Skill set not attractive for students -> no Programmers -> no use of
the language in small shops --> skill set not attractive for students
-> ...

You get the picture. 

Regards -- Markus