Re: Dec Ditching Ada?

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (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.