Re: Ada and Mesa

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Rueidiger says

"I don't know about the fourth point. As far as I can see, there is only
GNAT, which is available on a majority of platforms. As it is under the
GPL, I am not sure, whether I can develop commercial programs with it."

That there might be a problem is a common misconception, but there is none.
Your program will of course include stuff from the runtime library which
is the source of concern, but the entire GNAT runtime library uses a
modified version of the GPL which completely eliminates such concerns. 
Here is the text from a typical runtime library header:

-- GNAT is free software;  you can  redistribute it  and/or modify it under --
-- terms of the  GNU General Public License as published  by the Free Soft- --
-- ware  Foundation;  either version 2,  or (at your option) any later ver- --
-- sion.  GNAT is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITH- --
-- OUT ANY WARRANTY;  without even the  implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY --
-- or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License --
-- for  more details.  You should have  received  a copy of the GNU General --
-- Public License  distributed with GNAT;  see file COPYING.  If not, write --
-- to  the Free Software Foundation,  59 Temple Place - Suite 330,  Boston, --
-- MA 02111-1307, USA.                                                      --
--                                                                          --
-- As a special exception,  if other files  instantiate  generics from this --
-- unit, or you link  this unit with other files  to produce an executable, --
-- this  unit  does not  by itself cause  the resulting  executable  to  be --
-- covered  by the  GNU  General  Public  License.

Lots of ACT's customers (in fact most or nearly all) are using GNAT to
develop proprietary or even highly classified software.