Re: What is wrong with Ada?

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

"Chad  R. Meiners" <chad.rmeiners@gmail.com> writes:

> On Apr 21, 9:50 am, "jimmaureenrog...@worldnet.att.net"
> <jimmaureenrog...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>> Can you obtain trial versions of any Microsoft product at all?
>
> Actually most computer science students can obtain free and complete
> versions of most Microsoft products.

I hate to make advertisement for them, but even a non-student you can
get trial versions of a lot (most?) of things, e.g. Exchange (brr --
who'd want that?), most of the operating systems (perhaps only at
certain times?). They are mostly restricted to 120 days of use.

Since we have been talking about Ada vendors: MS understands marketing
very well, something the Ada vendors never groked. E.g. You always get
an answer to requests. it might be wrong, but it's always friendly and
the stay composed, even if you refuse their offer of X by pointing to
some free (as in freedom) product and tell them that you and/or your
customers prefer the free solution. On the other side, if I compare
that to (big) Ada vendors (Randy excepted!): On two requests for a
price list only one vendor bothered to answer and he didn't send a
list but wanted to know more about me/us (obviously they don't have a
standard package, but take what you can afford, a particularly
unsympathetic approach). And about surreal answers on requests about
licensing state and history from the "acting director, Europe" of a
certain vendor, I've already written enough in the past.

There is one similarity, though: Libre (well, that's only one Ada
vendor) and download.microsoft.com share a similar degree of amnesia
as far as the past state of things are concerned.

Regards -- Markus