Re: ANNOUNCE: DTraq Released

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

Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> writes:

> Thanks for a valuable discussion.
> 
> The only reason I got involved was that I felt that people were
> getting the wrong end of the stick about GPL licensing and the impact
> on their own code, which is as we all know an emotive issue round
> here.

It's less emotion on my part or obsessiveness for my code. It's just
simple "business considerations". Let's take GtkAda which now seems to
be GPL only. With the new situation I have 2 options:

  - Develop GPL code only. Some customers don't like that, since they
    don't want to grant me the right to distribute the control
    programs I'm writing for them. Probably that could be fixed by
    having a contractual agreement (perhaps, IANAL), but usually their
    lawyers are unsettled enough by the vicinity to GPL code that they
    are not sure wether I'm actually bound to that agreement: So to be
    sure they prefer to let their process control made in C# or Java
    (That case is real so don't coplain to me anyone).

  - I start big and pay the ACT support with (one hears $ 15000.- /
    year). Of course that would rise the fix cost for Ada programming
    so much that I would be forced to programm Ada in almost 100% of
    the projects. There is no market for this. 

    The market could be bootstrapped by starting small projects with
    Ada and using them as reference and the knowhow acquired there to
    get the next customer(s) to try Ada instead of Java or
    .Net. Unfortunately that bootstrapping needs time.

With the old GMPL license for GtkAda one could try to bootstrap a
clientele of Ada customers slowly. With GPL-or-buy-ACT-support and an
entry barrier of $15000.- its a all-or-nothing proposition. Certainly
nothing to stimulate a community which would use Ada instead of C.

A bit emotion admittedly comes in at the point where license change
from GMPL to GPL (this is a restriction as I have tried to explain),
after on has inversted time and effort into Ada infrastructure (which
is now over day and year only good for option 1: GPL
softwaredevelopment). 

I've been following the discussion on c.l.a. on the issue of GNAT GPL
in c.l.a end of last year and have to say that I found the GPL
protagonists ("Do you expect AdaCore to work for nothing") also not
quite so cool and rational then. Obviously there is emotion on both
sides here. One of the reasons I didn't participate then and one of
the reasons I already sort of regret that I started this discussion.

Regards -- Markus