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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,e276c1ed16429c03 X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,UTF8 Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!usenet-fr.net!gegeweb.org!aioe.org!not-for-mail From: =?utf-8?Q?Yannick_Duch=C3=AAne_=28Hibou57?= =?utf-8?Q?=29?= Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada is getting more popular! Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:06:57 +0200 Organization: Ada @ Home Message-ID: References: <4cc4cb65$0$6985$9b4e6d93@newsspool4.arcor-online.net> <5086cc5e-cd51-4222-a977-06bdb4fb3430@u10g2000yqk.googlegroups.com> <14fkqzngmbae6.zhgzct559yc.dlg@40tude.net> <8732ea65-1c69-4160-9792-698c5a2e8615@g13g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: YUJoXIV+Uw1GYWsWw3uzcA.user.speranza.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 User-Agent: Opera Mail/10.63 (Win32) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:14756 Date: 2010-10-25T21:06:57+02:00 List-Id: Le Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:00:19 +0200, Ludovic Brenta = a =C3=A9crit: I may reply to others later, but I wanted to reply without waiting to yo= ur = message. > I think we'll agree that that's a distorted > relationship between producer and consumer. In the "sell software, > not services" model, the software is a vehicle for advertizing and > selling the services. Agree and strongly feels this is distorted too. And to be honest, that i= s = true for every thing with some more or less relationship with the web (a= nd = most software are distributed on the web). This has another effect : the= = value is not the value of what is primarily exposed as valuable (the = software, or the document on web-site), as this is valuable for the = author, only via indirect ways which has nothing to deal with what is = exposed as valuable. > If the software is proprietary, you cannot tell > how buggy it is or will be in the future and you must depend on a > single supplier for the services. If the software is Free Software, > there is no catch and no hidden bugs; all the bugs are in the open That is entirely false. Few people audit sources, and open or close sour= ce = does not matter for 98% of users. It is commonly known that with about = 70/80% of open-source software, you have a single developer and nobody = else care about the source. Further more, nowadays applications tends to= = be so much complex that understanding or auditing the source requires a = = enormous personal investment, so just a few people do that. And this = complexity helps hidden bug or even back-door. Sorry, forget the link, b= ut = I swear I recently read about an open-source application with such a = back-door. Free does not guarantee anything. Bugs may still be hidden by= = lack of human investment and high complexity. > and > you don't have to buy services from the same people that provided the > first dose. The trouble here is more with a lack of interoperability. The matter mor= e = deals with public standards, like POSIX, XML, vs proprietary stuffs, lik= e = the MS-Doc proprietary format. > No, the service is not secondary to the product and you know that. Why= > else does your company pay for AdaCore's services if they can get the > same compiler and libraries for free? Even if your boss only pays to > "cover his ass" (i.e. help with certification), that is still a > valuable service. AdaCore is company to which you could not compare any other. Their clien= ts = are big clients with special needs. For most others I would say a softwa= re = is good if it does not requires support, because it is fine as-is withou= t = support. For these common cases, if you want people to rely on your = services (because you must give the software for free because you do not= = have the choice due to the context), then you must try to be unavoidable= , = a kind of monopole or a kind of unique quasi-actor in an area. Otherwise= , = if you do read-to-use-without-need-for-more-support-software, you simply= = loose. In some way, this context push complexity and trouble-inside = software, just because support is the only way to get any earn. And doin= g = so, you must be sure nobody could provide the support except you (thus, = = the need for high complexity). That is distorted too. This is not applicable at all to tiny company or stand-alone authors. > You still have not provided a satisfactory explanation of why you > think that the "sell services, no software" is socialism, so the > comparison with the USSR is meaningless to me. Well, I agree the word socialism may be a bit miss-used here, but that i= s = another story (not for that place). > No, I explain these things by plain and simple greed and short- > sightedness from most people managing developers and from most > developers themselves. Socialism has nothing to do with that. Proof:= > the miserable state of software you describe exists also in (some) > very capitalist companies selling high-end, expensive proprietary > software, especially those who charge only a small fraction of the > license fees in "maintenance fees". These companies are simply not > interested in fixing the bugs that affect their customers; they are > only interested in selling "upgrades". And the unrealistic time-to- > market pressures (e.g. arbitrarily fixed release schedules) make it > nearly impossible for them to ship bug-free software in the first > place. If they do not care, that is not because they sell free or none-free = software, that is because they are big and as such, they are unavoidable= . = They know whatever they do, clients will be sticked with them (the case = = with MS, as an example, and I say that although I am running Windows). A= nd = unfortunately, the context push this kind of big companies, because = alternatives will not have even a chance to born or to survive. As I = sometime say, =E2=80=9CLinux did not help to get ride of Windows, it ins= tead = helped to enforce MS monopole=E2=80=9D. Why ? Because it helped MS killi= ng any = potential MS concurrents. The idea that the author as no right at all and only the consumer as all= = the rights, could not ends into anything else. You must have the power o= f = a monopole to get a chance to survive in such a context. Otherwise, no = right for authors and all rights for consumers, simply means you better = be = a consumer than an author. Result : more and more consumers, less and le= ss = authors (or less and less authors who survive). The result is poor autho= rs = and poor products, as Dmitry argue. Note : AdaCore is a kind of UFO here, as it provides a rather good = product. But I still believe its special status (like public funding whi= le = others did not get the same, and GPL) made some collateral damage, and I= = know someones (at least one), seems to have suffered from that. -- = Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c=E2=80=99es= t pas pour = les chiens.