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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.glorb.com!news.mixmin.net!gandalf.srv.welterde.de!news.jacob-sparre.dk!loke.jacob-sparre.dk!pnx.dk!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Randy Brukardt" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL is not shareware Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2015 14:14:48 -0600 Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Research & Innovation Message-ID: References: <0Kgqw.953330$_k.685364@fx16.iad> <199c826a-923e-497f-a8e2-9e732c8a5665@googlegroups.com> <87bnmetex4.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <4ae7f0d5-d681-4be9-95bc-b5e789b3ad40@googlegroups.com> <87tx06rve6.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <87lhlirpk0.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <4984c229-bdcd-4032-bd88-cde66482e6df@googlegroups.com> <6950687c-7b03-440e-ba15-e1092f86a3d0@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: rrsoftware.com X-Trace: loke.gir.dk 1422994488 15771 24.196.82.226 (3 Feb 2015 20:14:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@jacob-sparre.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2015 20:14:48 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 Xref: number.nntp.giganews.com comp.lang.ada:192164 Date: 2015-02-03T14:14:48-06:00 List-Id: "David Botton" wrote in message news:a48c3f8f-dcee-4d66-aafb-8f3c13733b53@googlegroups.com... >> Sadly, I don't think there is much future for doing things well, because >> for >> that one can neither sell maintenance nor get much effort for >> improvement. >> Which ultimately leads to a bleak future for humanity, IMHO. >Not true building a vertical market on a libre base, offering other >services >around the language and products, brokering consulting services, job >placement services, training, etc. I can think of many other ways to >monitize >your work on an open source compiler (I say work on because the compiler >was and is not the product, that falsehood alone has blinded them to >innovation so far). I don't believe most of this. For one thing, AdaCore has lots of non-compiler products; they've clearly tried (and are trying) to provide many things other than the compiler. Indeed, a compiler has *never* been a product. The product at the very least is an ecosystem of development tools. A compiler alone is not a very useful thing. And while the language is standardized, those other things are not. As such, vendor lock-in is almost inevitable -- changing IDEs, project management, debuggers, etc. is a lot more difficult than changing compilers. But I contend that any business model based on software is ultimately doomed. Free Software has made it far too easy to copy any good ideas -- on top of which the later implementations can avoid mistakes made in the first. The pioneer, the visionary has no hope of making any money off their work -- in order to make money, they have to do something totally unrelated ("job placement", what the heck does that have to do with anything?) and that takes way too much time away from the thing that would actually do good. >The one guaranteed long term failure plan history has proven out many times >is customer lock-in methods... I don't predict doom for them, only because >enough people care about Ada to try and prevent it, despite themselves. I agree if you're only talking about lock-in alone. Customers get wise to that in a hurry. OTOH, GPS, gprbuild, etc. are also things that cause lock-in. But it would be hard to have a useful development system without something like those things. So to some extent, lock-in is pretty much built-into the territory. Randy.