Re: What exactly is the licensing situation with GNAT?

[Luther Bogart <playitagain@morocco.com>]

On 2014-11-13, Hubert <herrdoktor@fumanchu.com> wrote:
>> Unfortunately, if it is like most of David's other software, it won't work
>> on other Ada compilers. (That is a common problem, not really picking on
>> David here, a lot of supposedly Ada software is really GNAT software.) That
>> locks you into GNAT, and as you note, the costs for getting regular support
>> for GNAT are not really affordable.
>
> Let's face it: Gnat is the only compiler out there that has any chance 
> of making it to mainstream market. I contacted the other two vendors of 
> Ada compilers (forgot the names, I refer to them internally as the green 
> and the silver/blue website). they dont have prices on their sites, have 
> cool pics of fighter jets and only support up to Ada 95. I wanted to ask 
> for prices, evaluation version and I didn't even get a response, so I 
> guess unless you have "IBM" or "Pentagon" in your email domain, they 
> don't even read your email.

I have had similar experiences and said so here over the years. I even
called and got the guy to laugh at me over the phone for the price of a long
distance call (no distributor here). But they can't sell it to IBM since IBM
already has Ada they bought from Rational. IBM previously sold off their Ada
370 version to a company in Virginia. Those people are a lot more personable
(and reasonable) but you still have to take out a second mortgage if you
want to use Ada.

Anyway I don't agree with you thaht GNAT can make it in the mainstream
market if you mean the real Ada market. There are already a few companies in
that space and they'll stay there until the business disappears.

As far as hobbyist, personal, or small professional developer goes there
shouldn't be any reason why gcc-Ada can't be just like gcc and gfortran,
without an encumbered runtime. People are selling stuff written in gcc all
the time and they don't have to open source it.

Luther