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=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,9a5f3bd162009c01 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL 2005: Too clever by half? References: <70e0e$4331acfc$4995583$14979@ALLTEL.NET> <87hdcew7wq.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <1127511077.919641.107390@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 13:41:45 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.13.56 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net 1127569305 209.165.13.56 (Sat, 24 Sep 2005 06:41:45 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 06:41:45 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5096 Date: 2005-09-24T13:41:45+00:00 List-Id: 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 -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: No.Mcondic.Spam@Del.Mindspring.Com (Remove the "No.", ".Spam" and "Del." for the real address.) "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried." -- G. K. Chesterton ======================================================================