Re: What exactly is the licensing situation with GNAT?

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"David Botton" <david@botton.com> wrote in message 
news:19fa65d4-72c9-44ab-b44b-4ea0929c18f2@googlegroups.com...

>> Unfortunately, if it is like most of David's other software, it won't 
>> work
>> on other Ada compilers

>Not true. Janus is the only Windows compiler with an issue.

>There was an ABI issue with using Janus that was too much effort for me to 
>consider as a
>volunteer effort for  a non Open Source compiler, however, GnatCOM was used 
>on
>Aonix OpenAda and in Rational's Ada compiler. Privately I can give you a 
>list of projects
>where I know it was used if you like not on GNAT.

Didn't even remember GnatCOM. (With a name like that, why would anyone 
expect it to work with any other Ada compiler? Marketing, as you mention, is 
important.)

>I do not know if GWindows was used on other compilers, but other than the 
>fact that
>I tend to use Object'Img there is nothing GNAT specific about the project. 
>Since
>GNAT is the only open source compiler, it is the only one I choose to 
>support until
>there are others.

Understand the latter. Have you ever tried profile 
(No_Implementation_Extensions)? My experience is that people use a lot of 
them without even being aware. (That's true for me, too, BTW).

My recollection is that GWindows depended on Unrestricted_Access (a huge 
amount of GNAT software does), and that really only works with the GCC 
runtime model. (The use of trampolines caused lots of problems on Windows; 
AdaCore has finally gotten rid of most of those.)

>> That requires displine and testing that most hobbyests wouldn't bother 
>> with.
>
>I think that you confuse Open Source developers with "Hobbyest", that is 
>usually not the case at all.

Well, the vast majority of the Ada software posted here is not 
professionally developed. The authors may be professional, but the software 
is a side-line at best. That's what I was thinking of when I said the above.

>GnatCOM was a professional supported product by GNAT.

Right, but those sorts of products have even less incentive to work on other 
compilers. They only really care about their own compiler.

>GWindows is used as a professional product by fortune 500 companies. I 
>didn't go
>through with my plan 10 years ago with bringing Ada to the business sector 
>because
>of license changes in GNAT to the public version and various other issues. 
>Using FSF
>compilers in those days was not a big option.

It did however cannibalize our Claw business such that it made it 
non-economic to put major work into it, and of course poliferated 
interfaces. One of the major goals that we had for Claw was to make a 
semi-standard interface for Windows so that everyone could use a single 
interface.

>There is nothing in Gnoga other than the use again of Object'Img preventing 
>it from
>being used on Janus if it ever gets updated to Ada 2012. I'd be happy to 
>help you do
>the work to replace AWS if needed with your own implementation of 
>Websockets, etc.

I'm not sure I have the time; I've spread myself too thin to do anything 
well which is not helping Ada much. (And of course the "updating to Ada 
2012" probably ought to have priority.) But I'll keep that in mind should 
the need arise.

>I think that for many people they have not "figured" out how to make Open 
>Source
>work to their advantage. It has in my career.
>
>I'd be happy to talk to you privately any time about how to make Janus work 
>in an
>Open Source environment provided you could open it. If you can't perhaps we 
>can
>talk about options for a new Open Source compiler. I really liked Janus.

I've seriously considered that, but I'm dubious that a business model based 
on support alone would work (we always had problems selling support 
contracts). Anyway, let's take this off line; my e-mail hasn't changed since 
the last time we talked. :-)

>Your CLAW Open Source version came too late, if it was a year before I 
>probably
>would have forked it and used it instead of created GWindows.

That's of course the big annoyance for me. We'd always intended to open 
source the binding once the government obligation had been cleared. We 
didn't do it immediately because I didn't want it forked until it was pretty 
well tested (and the because the Builder had to be good enough to stand on 
its own). Had you talked to me before starting GWindows, I'm pretty sure we 
could have worked something out (given that there wasn't any major 
difference between our plans and your plans).

But that's water under the dam at this point. I promise I'll forget about 
Web-Claw. :-)

                                  Randy.