From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1efdd369be089610 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Ronald Cole Subject: Re: gnat-3.10 Date: 1997/06/18 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 249427848 Sender: ronald@devo.ridgenet.net References: <5o480g$tqk$3@mdnews.btv.ibm.com> <33A7AD60.71A5@cci.de> Organization: RidgeNet - SLIP/PPP Internet, Ridgecrest, CA. (760) 371-3501 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-06-18T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Andrew Lynch writes: > I see being able to get a free version of GNAT as a privilege, not a > right. If GNAT does not work for me, then tough shit. I am under the impression GNAT is under the GPL because it was developed with government money and uses the gcc backend. The "tough shit" part really isn't true because source is made available. > I can either have a look at the sources and try to fix it myself, or > I can *pay* ACT to make me a version that works for me, or I can > wait for the changes that somebody else *paid* ACT to make become > available in a public release. The latter is what I'm doing since Robert has convinced me that I probably should charge him for any fixes I make to his product. And since it'll be a cold day in hell when that happens, I won't be able to distribute fixed versions. It looks like quite a bit of work to make the pa-risc more robust with Ada. It also seems like no one is willing to pay the high cost to fix it. Of course, I'm not screwing around with any of the gcc-2.8 pre-releases so I may be completely off-base here, but no one has provided any information to indicate that it will change in this area. I would be very willing to pay for support once I saw that the product had matured on that platform. Robert has yet to convince me with a factual argument that GNAT for the pa-risc has. > For my personal use of GNAT I usually go with the third option. If > you want to use GNAT in your company I would suggest you go with > option two and carry on these arguments via email. No client of mine would be willing to pay what it would cost to make GNAT more robust on the pa-risc platform. > Maybe ACT could fix every problem free of charge, but for how long? > At some point all ACT employees will have starved to death and then > where will you send your bug reports..? The Hacker Ethic that spawned the GNU Manifesto has both feet in the coffin. I contributed a considerable amount and time and effort to develop COFF support for and get it into g++-1.32 almost a decade ago. It was the right thing to do and I don't regret not profiting from it at all. -- Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA 93556-1412 Ronald Cole Phone: (760) 499-9142 President, CEO Fax: (760) 499-9152 My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43 56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B