Dec Ditching Ada?

Dec Ditching Ada?

[Charlie Cole]

We are installing new systems -- a bunch of high end PCs and some Alpha workstations and
moving to Ada95 as our core teaching language.  I was just told by the system administrator
that Digital is discontinuing it's Ada, saying is was not a viable language.  Anybody know
about this?  Is this the industry trend?

--
Charlie Cole -- East Stroudsburg University --  PA

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Howard W. LUDWIG]

Charlie Cole wrote:
> 
> We are installing new systems -- a bunch of high end PCs and some Alpha workstations and
> moving to Ada95 as our core teaching language.  I was just told by the system administrator
> that Digital is discontinuing it's Ada, saying is was not a viable language.  Anybody know
> about this?  Is this the industry trend?
> 
> --
> Charlie Cole -- East Stroudsburg University --  PA

Based on presentations by DEC and Rational which I attended, it is my
understanding that DEC and Rational have set up a teaming agreement, so
that Rational will develop, among other things, an Ada 95 compiler for
DEC.  Apparently, DEC has decided that Ada 95 toolsets are not a
reasonably viable product for them to produce on their own, which is a
very different concept from declaring the language itself to not be
viable.  Both Rational and DEC have said they are commited to Ada, and
that Rational is in a better position than DEC to develop such toolsets.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[James Squire]

Charlie Cole wrote:
> 
> We are installing new systems -- a bunch of high end PCs and some Alpha workstations and
> moving to Ada95 as our core teaching language.  I was just told by the system administrator
> that Digital is discontinuing it's Ada, saying is was not a viable language.  Anybody know
> about this?  Is this the industry trend?

Yes, DEC has declined to enter the Ada 95 market directly, but no, this 
is not an industry trend.  In fact, DEC is working with another vendor 
(I think I know who, but will decline until I am absolutely sure) who 
will provide DEC's Ada 95 solution - at least that's what I heard they 
were intending to do.

Pure speculation on my part is that DEC does not feel strong enough to 
compete directly in the Ada 95 market, i.e. they don't consider Ada one 
of their strategic technologies.  As far as I know they still support 
Ada 83 as well as they ever did.
-- 
James Squire                             mailto:jsquire@mdc.com
MDA Avionics Tools & Processes
McDonnell Douglas Aerospace              http://www.mdc.com/
Opinions expressed here are my own and NOT my company's
"Mr. Garibaldi, do you really think I would do such a thing to you, my
    good and dear friend?"
'In a minute.'
"You're right, but I didn't..."
	-- Londo and Garibaldi, "Survivors"

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Brian & Karen Bell]

Charlie Cole wrote:
> 
> We are installing new systems -- a bunch of high end PCs and some Alpha workstations and
> moving to Ada95 as our core teaching language.  I was just told by the system administrator
> that Digital is discontinuing it's Ada, saying is was not a viable language.  Anybody know
> about this?  Is this the industry trend?
> 

    DEC's plans (as I understand them) are quite architecture and OS-specific:

       Digital UNIX (Alpha) - To be supplied by Rational Software Corporation as part of
                              a publicly announced 'hardware for software' deal.

       OpenVMS/Alpha        - Not announced yet, but informed sources expect this to be a
                              port of GNAT with all DECisms (STARLET, etc) included; support
                              likely from A Compiler Team located somewhere in New York. I
                              personally hope this available some time in 96Q3 or Q4 because
                              I'm ready to sign a support contract!

       OpenVMS/VAX          - Don't hold your breath. Feasible of course (given the
                              existence of an OVMS/VAX GNU backend) but not viewed by the
                              planners and decision-makers as having sufficient commercial
                              value. Who can say?

       Ada (83)             - Supported as long as customers require it.

    In my opinion as a DEC Ada user since 1985, they (Bevin Brett et al) offered for many
    years the finest Ada (83) compiler implementation available. That DEC made the business
    decision not to engineer an Ada '95 product offering is not a reflection on the
    competence of their software engineers and it is *not* (as near as I can tell) based on
    any kind of expectation that Ada (the language) is on its way out. Rather it is a
    recognition that the cost model for continued Ada development and support was
    inconsistent with DEC's sales model. I can respect that.

    Think about it: If DEC was down on Ada why in hell would they have partnered with RSC
    (or that other acronym) to provide compatible, supported products for their customers?

    Brian Bell
    Working -- but not speaking -- for The Dow Chemical Company.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <4vi32h$bu1@jake.esu.edu>, ccole@esu.edu (Charlie Cole) writes:
> We are installing new systems -- a bunch of high end PCs and some Alpha workstations and
> moving to Ada95 as our core teaching language.  I was just told by the system administrator
> that Digital is discontinuing it's Ada, saying is was not a viable language.  Anybody know
> about this?  Is this the industry trend?

DEC has certainly decided (thus far) not to invest in upgrading DEC Ada
to Ada 95.  On the other hand, with each new release of DEC Ada(83),
they survey us regarding our use of DEC Ada and ask how important Ada 95
is to us.

For Unix DEC had a deal with a third party (Rational?) to bring
Ada 95 over in a different product.

For VMS DEC had a deal with someone to bring GNAT to Alpha only
(VMS tools which don't also produce VAX code are not much use to
commercial software vendors).

For Windows NT (where DEC Ada never existed), I suppose one should
look to traditional Ada vendors, but everything I have seen has been
Intel-centric.

Larry Kilgallen
(anxious to be corrected)

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Alain Graziani]

At 06:42 PM 8/22/96 -0500, James Squire wrote:
>Charlie Cole wrote:
>>
>> We are installing new systems -- a bunch of high end PCs and some Alpha
>workstations and
>> moving to Ada95 as our core teaching language.  I was just told by the system
>administrator
>> that Digital is discontinuing it's Ada, saying is was not a viable language.
>Anybody know
>> about this?  Is this the industry trend?
>
>Yes, DEC has declined to enter the Ada 95 market directly, but no, this
>is not an industry trend.  In fact, DEC is working with another vendor
>(I think I know who, but will decline until I am absolutely sure) who
>will provide DEC's Ada 95 solution - at least that's what I heard they
>were intending to do.

[snipped]

Rational Corp is the vendor which is replace DEC's Ada95 compiler.  But as
of a couple months ago Rational didn't have the Ada95 compiler ready yet for
VMS, VAX or Alpha.

Alain Graziani
graziani@gtss.rdyne.rockwell.com
Rocketdyne Division, Rockwell International

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Douglas Rupp]

>For VMS DEC had a deal with someone to bring GNAT to Alpha only
>(VMS tools which don't also produce VAX code are not much use to
>commercial software vendors).

The deal is with Ada Core Technologies.

>
>For Windows NT (where DEC Ada never existed), I suppose one should
>look to traditional Ada vendors, but everything I have seen has been
>Intel-centric.

A.C.T. demonstrated this port at the last Tri-Ada.

Douglas Rupp

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Klaus Wyss]

Charlie Cole wrote:
> 
> We are installing new systems -- a bunch of high end PCs and some Alpha workstations and
> moving to Ada95 as our core teaching language.  I was just told by the system administrator
> that Digital is discontinuing it's Ada, saying is was not a viable language.  Anybody know
> about this?  Is this the industry trend?
> 
> --
> Charlie Cole -- East Stroudsburg University --  PA


Hello

DEC is working together with Rational for the Ada 95 compilers on
DEC-Unix.
For VMS they work together with Ada Core Systems porting GNAT to Alpha
VMS.
As far as i know now, there will be no ADA95 compiler on VAX VMS


Klaus Wyss
Union Bnak of Switzerland

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Charlie McCutcheon]

DEC Ada is indeed still supported.  It is Ada '83.

Digital has partnered to get Ada '95 solutions.

Rational will do the Digital Unix solution.

ACT (Ada Core Technologies) will do the OpenVMS Alpha solution.
The ACT product is about to enter field test, BTW...

Charlie

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Charlie McCutcheon]

DEC Ada (Ada '83) is still supported!

Digital is partnering to deliver Ada '95 solutions.

This has been announced "elsewhere", and is official.

For Digital UNIX, Ada has partnered with Rational.

For OpenVMS Alpha, Ada has partnered with ACT (Ada Core Technologies).
In fact, ACT is about to enter field test.

Charlie

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

Larry said

"For VMS DEC had a deal with someone to bring GNAT to Alpha only
(VMS tools which don't also produce VAX code are not much use to
commercial software vendors).
"

Actually most users seem interested only in the Alpha product. However,
we are most interested in knowing who would be interested in a VAX
based Dec-83 compatible Ada 95 GNAT. When we have delivered the Alpha
prodcut, it is not that much more effort to make a VAX based version,
so if there is commercial itnerest, it will probably happen.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

James Squire said

"Yes, DEC has declined to enter the Ada 95 market directly, but no, this
is not an industry trend.  In fact, DEC is working with another vendor
(I think I know who, but will decline until I am absolutely sure) who
will provide DEC's Ada 95 solution - at least that's what I heard they
were intending to do.
"

There is no secret here. The cooperation between DEC and Ada Core
Technologies was announced last year at Tri-Ada. The contract is now
in place, and we expect to start field-testing of the GNAT Ada 95
compiler for Alpha VMS within the next couple of weeks. This is a full
GNAT implementation with many additions for DEC Ada compatibility (e.g.
the full implementation of all GNAT pragmas and attributes, many of
which will be available in other GNAT implementations starting with
GNAT release 3.07.

For DEC Unix, there is a GNAT implementation as well, and Rational has
promised a full Ada 95 version of APEX for this configuration.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

Alain said

"Rational Corp is the vendor which is replace DEC's Ada95 compiler.  But as
of a couple months ago Rational didn't have the Ada95 compiler ready yet for
VMS, VAX or Alpha.
"

That's confusing misinformation. Rational has promised an Ada 95 Apex
version for DEC Unix only. They have so far not announced any intention
of supporting VMS. A port of GNAT to VMS Alpha is currently in progress,
and is due to go into field test soon. This development is funded by
DEC through a contract between DEC and Ada Core Technologies, as announced
at the last Tri-Ada.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

"Based on presentations by DEC and Rational which I attended, it is my
understanding that DEC and Rational have set up a teaming agreement, so
that Rational will develop, among other things, an Ada 95 compiler for
DEC.  Apparently, DEC has decided that Ada 95 toolsets are not a
reasonably viable product for them to produce on their own, which is a
very different concept from declaring the language itself to not be
viable.  Both Rational and DEC have said they are commited to Ada, and
that Rational is in a better position than DEC to develop such toolsets."

Note that Ada Core Technologies can supply today a full language Ada 95
compiler for DEC Unix, covering all the core language and all annexes.
This version, like other GNAT versions is freely available, and can be
downloaded from any of the GNAT mirror sites.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Brendan Boulter]

Hi,

Here's a copy of Digital's Ada'95 strategy for OpenVMS, Unix and NT (which
was posted last November). Hopefully this should clarify the situation !

- Brendan


  DIGITAL'S ADA '95 STRATEGY FOR OpenVMS, DIGITAL UNIX AND WINDOWS NT
  ===================================================================
    
  On November 6, Digital Equipment Corporation announced a new step in its 
  Ada 95 strategy for OpenVMS evolution.  To accommodate its customers with 
  mixed platform environments, Digital has expanded its Ada users' options 
  with the port of Ada Core Technologies (ACT) GNAT Ada compiler to Digital's 
  OpenVMS platform.  Now, users have the option of using the GNAT compiler 
  directly on OpenVMS Alpha.  Customers can also choose Rational Apex for 
  Ada, which is a complete Ada 83/95 development environment from Rational 
  Software Corporation.  Rational Apex combined with Rational's Remote 
  Compilation Integrator (RCI) on Digital UNIX Alpha will support a mixed 
  environment consisting of Ada 83/95 development on OpenVMS Alpha or Digital 
  UNIX.
    
  Digital's OpenVMS Ada Strategy
  ------------------------------
  Digital Equipment and Ada Core Technologies (ACT) recently announced that 
  ACT will port GNAT to the OpenVMS Alpha platform and enhance it with 
  Digital-specific bindings.  With the addition of the Digital 
  extensions/bindings to GNAT, and the incorporation of the Ada '83 standard 
  within Ada '95, users will be able to move their applications to the new 
  standard and retain the reliability and speed of the OpenVMS Alpha 
  platform.  ACT will make available a fully functional, validated version of 
  GNAT for OpenVMS Alpha as well as offer the Ada marketplace full support 
  for the product.  GNAT on OpenVMS is expected to be available next summer.
    
  GNAT is an Ada 95 compiler which implements the full Ada 95 language 
  defined by the ISO standard, including all optional annexes.  Ports to more 
  than 30 machines and operating systems environments, including Intel x86 
  (eight different operating systems), most RISC-based machines, the Amiga, 
  and the 1750-A, are currently available.  Additionally, GNAT  features full 
  cross-compilation capability.
    
  Rational Software Corporation is Digital's premier Ada partner.  Rational 
  Apex is a robust software development environment that run on Digital UNIX 
  Alpha, as well as other open systems platforms.  Rational Apex with RCI 
  supports Ada 83/95 development on Digital UNIX with program deployment on 
  OpenVMS Alpha, OpenVMS VAX (Ada 83 only), Digital UNIX Alpha, all major 
  UNIX hosts, and a wide variety of embedded processors including Alpha 
  Single Board Computer.  Software developers will be able to develop and 
  test both target-independent and target-dependent software with Rational 
  Apex using its rich underlying semantic information and architecture 
  control capabilities.  Target-independent code will execute under the 
  control of Rational Apex on the Digital UNIX Alpha host while 
  target-dependent software can be developed and integrated on the Rational 
  Apex host (a Digital UNIX machine) and then tested while executing on the 
  ultimate target.  A user will be able to manage a host-based, single-or 
  multiple-target application with Rational Apex and RCI and Rational's 
  powerful configuration management and version control (CMVC) capabilities.
    
  "Having the GNAT Ada 95 compiler available on Digital's Alpha running 
  OpenVMS will mean users can take full advantage of the Rational Apex 
  environment hosted on Alpha running Digital UNIX while deploying developed 
  Ada 95 applications on OpenVMS Alpha," said Kevin Nix, director of 
  marketing at Rational Software Corporation.
    
  "Digital will be offering our OpenVMS customers a viable alternative to 
  pursue an Ada 95 implementation," said Steve Jenkins, vice president of the 
  Commercial Software Products Group.  "This solution offers our OpenVMS 
  users an opportunity to take advantage of OpenVMS reliability and the Alpha 
  technology."
    
  OpenVMS brings proven mission critical capabilities to user's solutions. 
  Customers have been deploying OpenVMS in bet-your-business/mission critical 
  environments for years.  Consistently OpenVMS is ranked near the top of 
  analyst reports and software studies in attributes that customers consider 
  important in deploying solutions that require continuous operation.
    
  Digital's UNIX Ada Strategy
  ---------------------------  
  As Digital's premier partner for Ada '95 on the Digital UNIX and NT 
  platforms, Rational has formed a strategic alliance with Digital for the 
  Ada market. Similarly, Digital's Alpha architecture has become the primary 
  platform for Rational's software.  Rational's Ada '95 software tools are 
  Digital's strategic Ada '95 solution for Digital UNIX.  All new Rational 
  Ada products and new functionality will be brought to market first on Alpha 
  to provide customers with early access to new capabilities.  Further, 
  Rational develops its Ada software for superior performance and quality of 
  operation on Alpha.
    
  Rational Apex Ada is an integrated, interactive software engineering 
  environment for controlling the development of complex software systems.  
  Newly available for the Alpha platform, it facilitates the development 
  process by incorporating new code-generation technology and optimizations 
  from Rational's VADS compiler line, resulting in improved code quality.
    
  Digital's Alpha Provides an Industry-Leading Solution
  -----------------------------------------------------
  Rational's software products on Digital's AlphaStations and AlphaServers 
  are the best choice for fastest time-to-market and the lowest 
  cost-to-market for Ada software projects.  Production is hassle-free and 
  users enjoy binary compatibility across the entire line of workstations and 
  servers, dispelling worries or concerns about recompiling when adding 
  capabilities. 
    
  In addition, Digital offers the most standards-compliant UNIX in the 
  industry as defined by X/OPEN, ensuring portability to other less compliant 
  vendors platforms, whether BSD or System V.  As another porting advantage, 
  Digital offers the ability to develop in either UNIX or NT and deploy on 
  UNIX, OpenVMS, NT and the broadest spectrum of target processors while 
  investing in only one hardware platform.  And as a convenience feature, 
  Digital offers users the ability to reconfigure your file system on-line, 
  with no down time necessary.
    
  Digital's Product --  DEC Ada 
  -----------------------------
  DEC Ada is Digital's high performance, self host Ada '83 compiler 
  availableacross OpenVMS VAX, OpenVMS Alpha , and Digital UNIX Alpha.  The 
  DEC Ada product family is extended with EDS-Scicon's XD Ada cross-platform 
  compilers for the Motorola family of microprocessors and MIL-STD-1750A 
  targets for OpenVMS on both VAX and Alpha.  Digital's plans are to continue 
  to offer DEC Ada across all three platforms and support it well into the 
  future.  The DEC Ada Version 3.3 family of product releases are planned for 
  the coming year.
    
  "After careful consideration, Digital has decided to not take DEC Ada to 
  the Ada '95 standard on any platform," added Steve Jenkins.  "By working 
  with industry and technology leaders such as Rational and ACT, we believe 
  we'll be able to best meet our user's needs."
    
  The ultimate goal of the Rational, ACT and Digital partnership is to help 
  user's move from the Ada '83 standard to the Ada '95 standard.  The 
  products, migration tools and services resulting from this strategic 
  alliance are designed specifically to help users achieve these goals.

-- 
 +---------------+
 | d i g i t a l |           Brendan Boulter 
 +---------------+
            
 Tel: (+353-91) 754906       Digital Equipment Corporation
 Fax: (+353-91) 754435       Scientific & Technical Computing Group
 Net: boulter@ilo.dec.com    Ballybrit, Galway 
 DTN: 822 4906               Ireland 



-- 
 +---------------+
 | d i g i t a l |           Brendan Boulter 
 +---------------+
            
 Tel: (+353-91) 754906       Digital Equipment Corporation
 Fax: (+353-91) 754435       Scientific & Technical Computing Group
 Net: boulter@ilo.dec.com    Ballybrit, Galway 
 DTN: 822 4906               Ireland 

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Ken Garlington]

Alain Graziani wrote:
> 
> Rational Corp is the vendor which is replace DEC's Ada95 compiler.  But as
> of a couple months ago Rational didn't have the Ada95 compiler ready yet for
> VMS, VAX or Alpha.

Rational is doing UNIX.

ACT is doing Alpha/VMS.

Nobody is doing VAX/VMS (you either stick with Ada 83, or go buy another box,
or generate your own port of GNAT.)

-- 
LMTAS - "Our Brand Means Quality"

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[James Squire]

Robert Dewar wrote:

> There is no secret here. The cooperation between DEC and Ada Core
> Technologies was announced last year at Tri-Ada. The contract is now
> in place, and we expect to start field-testing of the GNAT Ada 95
> compiler for Alpha VMS within the next couple of weeks. This is a full
> GNAT implementation with many additions for DEC Ada compatibility (e.g.
> the full implementation of all GNAT pragmas and attributes, many of
> which will be available in other GNAT implementations starting with
> GNAT release 3.07.
> 
> For DEC Unix, there is a GNAT implementation as well, and Rational has
> promised a full Ada 95 version of APEX for this configuration.

I didn't mean to say that it should be kept secret, but simply that I 
wasn't sure of my facts.

As it turns out, I was thinking of Rational, but am glad you and others 
have clarified the situation for me.
-- 
James Squire                             mailto:jsquire@mdc.com
MDA Avionics Tools & Processes
McDonnell Douglas Aerospace              http://www.mdc.com/
Opinions expressed here are my own and NOT my company's
"I will tell you a great secret, Captain.  Perhaps the greatest of all
 time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up
 this station, and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars
 themselves. We are starstuff, we are the universe, made manifest, trying
 to figure itself out. As we have both learned, sometimes the universe
 requires a change of perspective." 
        -- Delenn (to Sheridan), "A Distant Star"

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

Ken says

"Nobody is doing VAX/VMS (you either stick with Ada 83, or go buy another box,
or generate your own port of GNAT.)"

Or, if there is enough interest, ACT does the VAX/VMS port ....

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Uri Raz]

James Squire wrote:
> Robert Dewar wrote:
>>                          The cooperation between DEC and Ada Core
>> Technologies was announced last year at Tri-Ada. The contract is now
>> in place, and we expect to start field-testing of the GNAT Ada 95
>> compiler for Alpha VMS within the next couple of weeks.
>>

   Where can I find more info about thatt ?

>>                                                         This is a full
>> GNAT implementation with many additions for DEC Ada compatibility (e.g.
>> the full implementation of all GNAT pragmas and attributes, many of
>> which will be available in other GNAT implementations starting with
>> GNAT release 3.07.
>> 
>
> I didn't mean to say that it should be kept secret, but simply that I 
> wasn't sure of my facts.
>
> As it turns out, I was thinking of Rational, but am glad you and others 
> have clarified the situation for me.
>
  And I wonder how will DEC circumvent the GNU license to continue selling
  the ADA compiler without sources and without dropping one cent of their
  license's price.

  Also wonder what will happen to the PDO license DEC sold - will they become
  useless, or would they have some use after all ?

 Uri Raz.

 P.S. - please mail me on answers, because the local news server is a little
        flaky, while the mail works nicely.

 +---------+--------------------+-------+-------+
 | Uri Raz | uraz@iil.intel.com |  Noir |  :-)  |
 |  All opinions are mine. Others may share it. |
 +----------------------------------------------+

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

Uri asked

"  And I wonder how will DEC circumvent the GNU license to continue selling
  the ADA compiler without sources and without dropping one cent of their
  license's price."

Well that's a lot of bogus misconceptions packed into a single sentence :-)

DEC will not sell the GNAT compiler for VMS. It will be available from ACT
with commercial support, just like other versions of GNAT that are supported,
and no one is trying to circumvent the GPL.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

Larry said

"Nobody said DEC would sell the result, just that DEC was funding the
compiler development.  DEC makes money selling hardware and operating
systems, and apparently sees having Ada 95 available on their machines
as important, but not a sufficient revenue generator to upgrade DEC Ada.
Perhaps they do not see it as a revenue generator due to the presence of
GNAT.  Although I think DEC Ada is great, and in general I prefer to
use commercial products."

Please note that GNAT *is* a commercial product. Perhaps you meant
proprietary here?

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <50jqic$293h@ilx018.iil.intel.com>, Uri Raz <uraz@iil.intel.com> writes:

>   And I wonder how will DEC circumvent the GNU license to continue selling
>   the ADA compiler without sources and without dropping one cent of their
>   license's price.

Nobody said DEC would sell the result, just that DEC was funding the
compiler development.  DEC makes money selling hardware and operating
systems, and apparently sees having Ada 95 available on their machines
as important, but not a sufficient revenue generator to upgrade DEC Ada.
Perhaps they do not see it as a revenue generator due to the presence of
GNAT.  Although I think DEC Ada is great, and in general I prefer to
use commercial products, I think the availability of a wide variety of
economic options is important in Ada compilers as in many other parts
of life.  If I wanted to write a commercial product which emitted code
to be fed to an Ada compiler, I would certainly cherish the availability
of GNAT to my (potential) customers.

>   Also wonder what will happen to the PDO license DEC sold - will they become
>   useless, or would they have some use after all ?

DEC has certainly indicated they will continue selling DEC Ada (83).
Whether GNAT performance can match the speed of the PDO is quite an
interesting question.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

Larry said

You may ask why I should care, and I believe the answer is that with
the GPL-support economic model, you are not making enough money for me
to feel comfortable.  Regardless of how much money you may make, it is
possible I would never feel comfortable.

   Curious. In your first sentence you worry about us not making enough
   money, but then you immediately show this is not your real concern,
   by saying that it would not make any difference if we did make lots
   of money! Certainly it is reasonable to worry about the financial
   health of any company you deal with, but past experience in the
   Ada market has certainly indicated that charging high prices for
   proprietary products is not a guarantee of prosperity!

I am sure all Ada fans would agree that distinct meanings where
possible are better than overloading.  The distinct economic models
I see are:

   Well to us, commerce, look it up, has to do with selling products
   and trying on the one hand to satisfy customer needs, and on the
   other trying to make some money!

   Of course I can do nothing about your comfort, but there is a real
   reason for distinguishing between proprietary and commercial
   software

If I say to a consulting client "let's use a _commercial_ product",
that has the meaning, developed over the years, of an approach
which necessitates a per-seat charge (or site-license). To
ask for a change in meaning is akin to asking for a change in
the Ada 95 tagged type syntax to make it be like C++ :-).

   But GNAT very definitely involves a per-set charge (or site-license)
   if you are, like most serious users of any software (or any other
   product for that matter) interested in having the vendor stand behind
   the product, and provide any needed support.

   This is quite distinct from unsupported free software, which may be
   usable in some circumstances, but on which your consulting clients
   might be understandably reluctant to depend.

   The idea of strictly licensed software is simply one commercial model
   for selling software services. The free software (note that the free
   here refers to free as in free speach, not free as in free lunch!)
   approach is another commercial model for selling software services.
   This is very different from freeware, where the emphasis is often
   on free as in $0.

   There are now several software companies which use the free software model
   for commercial support of high quality software, and they seem to be
   reasonably successful. Time will tell.

   There are two big advantages of the free software model for consumers:

     1. Access to the sources means you do not have a black box effect of
        not knowing what you are dealing with.

     2. Since the company you are dealing with sells only support, they are
        likely to put a lot of effort into providing high quality support,
        since that is what they have to sell. All to often with proprietary
        software, you buy the product, the company makes most of its money
        up front, and you take whatever support you can get, good or bad.

   Note that I do NOT include in this list zero, or even low cost. Indeed
   GNAT is not always the lowest cost solution, and in some situations a
   lower cost approach using one of the packaged proprietary compilers
   may be acceptably effective (depending on many factors, such as the
   level of support needed, and what subset of the language you need).

   As always in the world of commerce you choose the best product that
   meets your needs and is consistent with what you can afford. But
   the idea that there is a huge difference between paying $1000 for
   the software and $200 for support, as opposed to paying $0 for
   the software and $1200 for spuport really makes no sense. The
   company involved makes the same amount of money, you pay the
   same, and perhaps you get the sme level of service, or perhaps not!


Robert Dewar
President
Ada Core Technologies

P.S. In our experience it is indeed common for people to shy away from
the notion of free software, but that is because they associate the idea
with unsupported freeware, of the type available in large amounts for the
PC for example, much of which does not begin to approach any kind of 
reasonable quality. We have found that once our customers understand the
commercial model involved here, it makes a lot of sense to them and
definitely can meet their needs.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <dewar.841979749@schonberg>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Larry said
> 
> "Nobody said DEC would sell the result, just that DEC was funding the
> compiler development.  DEC makes money selling hardware and operating
> systems, and apparently sees having Ada 95 available on their machines
> as important, but not a sufficient revenue generator to upgrade DEC Ada.
> Perhaps they do not see it as a revenue generator due to the presence of
> GNAT.  Although I think DEC Ada is great, and in general I prefer to
> use commercial products."
> 
> Please note that GNAT *is* a commercial product. Perhaps you meant
> proprietary here?

I know there is a quote from the Red Queen about words meaning what
I choose, but in my lexicon GNAT is not commercial in that there is
no limit to how many systems I use it on (absent any service agreement
concerns).

You may ask why I should care, and I believe the answer is that with
the GPL-support economic model, you are not making enough money for me
to feel comfortable.  Regardless of how much money you may make, it is
possible I would never feel comfortable.

I am sure all Ada fans would agree that distinct meanings where
possible are better than overloading.  The distinct economic models
I see are:

	Commercial - traditional approach with limits on use
	Freeware - absolutely no restrictions
	Shareware - moral duty to pay in accordance with use
	GPL - no limit on use, optionally pay for support

leaving out the discussion on redistrbution for profit because it
is another dimension not currently under discussion.

Just as neither Robert nor I can retrieve the meaning of the word
"hacker" from the current mass media meaning of "bad guy", I believe
the term "proprietary" cannot have clear meaning other than the
widespread advertising use of "old bad stuff because it did not come
from our company".  It has been widely applied to fully documented
_protocols_ available for anyone to implement, merely to take the
meaning "not TCP/IP".

If I say to a consulting client "let's use a _commercial_ product",
that has the meaning, developed over the years, of an approach
which necessitates a per-seat charge (or site-license). To
ask for a change in meaning is akin to asking for a change in
the Ada 95 tagged type syntax to make it be like C++ :-).

Larry

P.S.  None of the above is to say that I would not adopt GNAT
	for certain situations.  I recently chose a non-GNAT
	Ada 95 product because I was impressed with surrounding
	tools which came in the box.  There are some platforms
	where commercial (my meaning) Ada 95 products will be
	extremely expensive or not available.  I am really
	counting on the standardization of the language to
	give me portability between compilers implementations.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <1996Sep6.091045.1@eisner> kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen) writes:
>I know there is a quote from the Red Queen about words meaning what
>I choose, but in my lexicon GNAT is not commercial in that there is
>no limit to how many systems I use it on (absent any service agreement
>concerns).

You are free to use words in any way you want, but when people are
trying to communicate, it's important to use words in a consistent
manner.

My dictionary defines "commercial" as "of or relating to commerce".

Since there exists a company whose sole business relates to GNAT, it's
very hard to see how it could not be viewed as "relating to commerce".

On the other hand, "proprietary" means "exclusively owned, private".
Indeed, GNAT does not meet this definition.

>You may ask why I should care, and I believe the answer is that with
>the GPL-support economic model, you are not making enough money for me
>to feel comfortable. 

I find this peculiar.  It's very rare for a compiler to be profitable
by itself.  Instead, it's an entry to some other business, such a
hardware, CASE tools, or support.  GNAT is no exception.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Dennison]

Richard Kenner wrote:
> 
> My dictionary defines "commercial" as "of or relating to commerce".
> 
> Since there exists a company whose sole business relates to GNAT, it's
> very hard to see how it could not be viewed as "relating to commerce".

That's a good argument for calling ACT commercial. GNAT itself, not being
owned by anyone and being freely available, would not seem to fit the 
definition.

There are lots of companies that will come mow my grass for me for a fee.
That doesn't make my lawn a farm.  :-)


(Wait! I'm not finished zipping up the asbestos sui...AIEEEEE!!)

-- 
T.E.D.
email    - mailto:dennison@iag.net
homepage - http://www.iag.net/~dennison

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

Ted said

"That's a good argument for calling ACT commercial. GNAT itself, not being
owned by anyone and being freely available, would not seem to fit the
definition."

Well a piece of software, whether proprietary or not, is not of itself
commercial. The commerce has to do with providing the product and
supporting it! The important distinction is between unsupported freeware
(where the free is the kind of free in free beer), and supported free
software (where the free is the kind of free in free speech). That's
an important distinction because people are understandably nerbous about
using unsupported software.

Certainly there may be people who like to pay for software itself without
getting support. Note that there is absolutely NOTHING that stops anyone
from selling GNAT with or without support. Perhaps we should offer two
products:

   GNAT Ada 95 compiler, including one year of free support    $1200
   One year of support for GNAT Ada 95 compiler, compiler
     included free of charge                                   $1200

and let people choose which they want :-)

Usually in my experience people who insist on saying that GNAT is not
a commercial product are those who, for whatever reason, don't like
the idea of free software. Note that whoever started this thread
freely admitted that even if ACT were wildly successful financially,
he would still not feel comfortable with free software.

On the other hand, there are those of us who never feel really comfortable
with proprietary software where we cannot see the sources, even if it is
priced affordably :-)

I do perfectly well understand people being concerned about the financial
health of any company they deal with. What I can say in response to that
is that we are in business and doing fine, while clearly past history
shows that selling proprietary Ada compilers is certainly no guarantee
of financial health or continued existence.

I really think the free vs proprietary software issue has little to do
with a company's health, which is much more a matter of the products
they offer, and whether customers want these products. So far the
free software companies (there are six of them, seven if you count
ACT/Europe as a separate company, which it is), seem to be doing fine.
I certainly don't know of any free software company failing, something
I certainly *cannot* say about companies selling proprietary software.

Robert

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

Ted said

""That's a good argument for calling ACT commercial. GNAT itself, not being
owned by anyone and being freely available, would not seem to fit the
definition.""

There is another VERY wrong piece of misinformation there. GNAT definitely
IS owned by someone. The copyright is held by the Free Software Foundatoin.
The copyright notice appears on every source file, and the binary will
display this notice if you use the -gnatv switch:

"GNAT 3.08w (960827) Copyright 1991-1996 Free Software Foundation, Inc."

Just as Microsoft grants a limited use license for use of its copyrighted
products, the FSF also grants a limited use license for the use of *its*
copyrighted products.

The terms of the license are indeed different, and of course Microsoft
will only grant you their much more limited license if you cough up
money up front, but the ownership situation is identical in both cases.

GNAT is very definitely NOT in the public domain!

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Chris Morgan]

In article <dewar.842131187@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

   The copyright notice appears on every source file, and the binary will
   display this notice if you use the -gnatv switch:

   "GNAT 3.08w (960827) Copyright 1991-1996 Free Software Foundation, Inc."
         ^^^^^
         |
         Oh you're just teasing us now aren't you :-)

Chris

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Uri Raz]

Guys (& girls - are you there ? :-),

   I doesnt seem to me like the issue is anything about who owns the compiler,
  whether payments goes for support or developement, or anything the like.

   The issue is about two questions :
    1. Is the GNAT a good Ada compiler ? (= is software X worthy of use ?)
    2. Does support give the bang for the bucks, and will continue to do
       so in the future ?

   As the first question is ignored in this thread, I think it boils down to
  the second - would GNAT users get their money's worth of support or not.

   The arguments claiming that the software's & support's quality having to do
  anything with where the money goes are vacuum thin - people might do good job
  for free, or bad job for good money, and payment might always cover non
  product related expenses (taxes, delivery, company overheads, whatever).

   One should check what he gets and what he pays. Idly philosophising about
  legal intricacies and money distribution wouldnt get anyone anywhere.

 Uri Raz.

 +---------+--------------------+-------+-----+-----+
 | Uri Raz | uraz@iil.intel.com |  Noir | :-) | :-( |
 |   All opinions are mine. Others may share them.  |
 +--------------------------------------------------+

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Chris Morgan]

In article <513a9r$10na@ilx018.iil.intel.com> Uri Raz
<uraz@iil.intel.com> writes:

      I doesnt seem to me like the issue is anything about who owns the compiler,
     whether payments goes for support or developement, or anything the like.

      The issue is about two questions :
       1. Is the GNAT a good Ada compiler ? (= is software X worthy of use ?)
       2. Does support give the bang for the bucks, and will continue to do
	  so in the future ?

      As the first question is ignored in this thread, I think it boils down to
     the second - would GNAT users get their money's worth of support or not.


Well as one user who has a support contract I am qualified to offer my
experience as answers to both questions.

1. Is GNAT a good Ada compiler?

Yes. If I were to use words and phrases such as "best", "fast",
"bullet-proof" need more evidence, but I think everyone agrees that
GNAT is a very good Ada compiler. In fact all the Ada95 compilers look
like being very good - better than the ones I have had to use for many
years in fact.

2. Does support give bang for the bucks

We think so.

2. ... and will continue to do so.

Who knows? Can't say whether IBM will be around in "the future" let
alone small companies like ACT (or mine for that matter).

Chris
--
cm@mihalis.demon.co.uk	Team Ada

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <513a9r$10na@ilx018.iil.intel.com>, Uri Raz <uraz@iil.intel.com> writes:

>    The issue is about two questions :
>     1. Is the GNAT a good Ada compiler ? (= is software X worthy of use ?)
>     2. Does support give the bang for the bucks, and will continue to do
>        so in the future ?
> 
>    As the first question is ignored in this thread, I think it boils down to
>   the second - would GNAT users get their money's worth of support or not.

It is not necessarily the case that a customer gets their money's
worth on support charges for traditional products, so GNAT should
not be held to a higher standard in that regard.

>    The arguments claiming that the software's & support's quality having to do
>   anything with where the money goes are vacuum thin - people might do good job
>   for free, or bad job for good money, and payment might always cover non
>   product related expenses (taxes, delivery, company overheads, whatever).

I did not claim that there was necessarily any relationship.  I stated
as a bold fact that such untraditional arrangements made me nervous
and (at least implicitly) claimed they were likely to make others
nervous as well.  There is nothing to be done to cure that human
reaction (other than years of experience to make the new methods
traditional), but it should be taken into account for business
planning purposes, as I am sure Robert, Jim and others have been
doing all along.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m2hgp4om0y.fsf@mihalis.demon.co.uk> cm@mihalis.demon.co.uk (Chris Morgan) writes:
>In article <513a9r$10na@ilx018.iil.intel.com> Uri Raz
>2. Does support give bang for the bucks
>2. ... and will continue to do so.
>
>Who knows? Can't say whether IBM will be around in "the future" let
>alone small companies like ACT (or mine for that matter).

One of the main advantages of free software is that continued support
for GNAT doesn't depend on whether or not ACT is around in the future.
If ACT goes away, or even if its customers become dissatisfied with
either the price or quality of support, somebody else can come in and
offer maintenance services since the source code is freely available.

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Robert Dewar]

iRichard Kenner said

"One of the main advantages of free software is that continued support
for GNAT doesn't depend on whether or not ACT is around in the future.
If ACT goes away, or even if its customers become dissatisfied with
either the price or quality of support, somebody else can come in and
offer maintenance services since the source code is freely available."

And of course this works two ways. Since ACT does not own GNAT, we know
we do not have a captive market for support, as would be the case with
a proprietary product, which encourages us to work hard to provide high
quality support!

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Jon S Anthony]

In article <dewar.842505611@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> And of course this works two ways. Since ACT does not own GNAT, we know
> we do not have a captive market for support, as would be the case with
> a proprietary product, which encourages us to work hard to provide high
> quality support!

Which you do indeed provide.

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
1 Williston Road, Suite 4
Belmont, MA 02178

617.484.3383
jsa@organon.com

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Charlie McCutcheon]

>  1. Is the GNAT a good Ada compiler ? (= is software X worthy of use ?)

Digital believes so, as we have a contract with them to provide the
solution on OpenVMS Alpha.

It will soon be in field test, so it can be checked out.

Charlie

Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <51keln$oks@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>, Charlie McCutcheon <cmccutcheon@begin.enet.dec.com> writes:
>>  1. Is the GNAT a good Ada compiler ? (= is software X worthy of use ?)
> 
> Digital believes so, as we have a contract with them to provide the
> solution on OpenVMS Alpha.
> 
> It will soon be in field test, so it can be checked out.

Checked out by whom?  Are you accepting applications for field test ?