Re: GNAT GPL 2005: Too clever by half?

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

Brian May wrote:
> 
> The code I write is *my* code, not Adacore's code, and I think the
> decision on how I should license should be up to me. It should also be
> entirely up to me what other libraries I link with - using openssl
> should be acceptable.
> 
That is the real issue - and it goes more towards the relative value of 
the compiler to someone rather than an issue of "rights". An average 
developer might not give it two seconds of thought and just assume that 
the compiler used to generate machine code from his code doesn't impose 
some sort of ownership rights or restrictions on his code. ACT can 
impose any restrictions they like, but I think that makes their compiler 
significantly less useful - and they should make it CLEAR to everyone 
running the compiler that by using it, they just got infected.

In my job, I have been able to get a handful of companies using Ada for 
various purposes by saying "Here's the Gnat compiler and its free and 
you can use it for anything you want without restriction." They've gone 
on to use it for a variety of purposes - usually some kind of internal 
development. Some of them have subsequently coughed up some money to ACT 
to become supported users. My own company may end up doing this at my 
instigation. But now the scenario changes.

Since the free Gnat compiler will contain these GPL restrictions on the 
generated code, I can't tell my customers they can use it for anything 
they want. They will almost certainly REFUSE to accept any limitations 
on their intellectual property. In their position, I would and will and 
do. Whatever I pay to develop, I want 100% of the rights to or (and this 
is the critical point:) I WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY.

My customers (and my company) will be looking at that situation and here 
are their alternatives:

1) Go buy a support agreement from ACT - something that is significantly 
more expensive than, say, buying a copy of Microsoft Visual C++.

2) Go buy a licensed copy of someone else's Ada compiler - perhaps 
paying about as much (or maybe more) than one would for MS-VC++.

3) Go use whatever native compilers they already have for other 
languages - such as the C compiler native on their Sun workstations. And 
after all, C is such a ubiquitous language, with just about every 
developer already knowing it and thousands of tools available to support 
it and huge libraries of stuff already available to link to and that's 
what the OS is written in so its just plain easier to get to the OS 
services, and all their tools like Matlab, Simulink, etc. all generate C 
code anyway and etc. etc. etc.

Which way do you guess they'll go? Hint: It was an uphill battle to get 
them to use Ada at all - even with a free compiler with no restrictions 
on their code.

Unless my customers are doing *embedded* development, they really don't 
need much in the way of support from a compiler vendor. What they need 
is s shrink-wrap copy of a compiler with an unrestrictive license on 
their end-product-code and some level of acceptable reliability and 
documentation. They probably won't go to ACT to get that since the bill 
would be excessive for the minimal amount of support they'd need. Since 
Microsoft is willing to sell them that for something less than $1000, 
guess what way they'll go now?

Now if ACT wanted to package up a shrink-wrap developer's kit and sell 
it for a few hundred bucks, (imposing no restrictions on the developer's 
code) then I'd bet a few of the people I've got using Gnat might 
actually spring for it.

Perhaps there's a good capitalist business opportunity here?

MDC

-- 
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Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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