Re: can one build commercial applications with latest gnat and other licenses related questions...

[M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

"Steve" <nospam_steved94@comcast.net> writes:

> "Marc A. Criley" <mcNOSPAM@mckae.com> wrote in message 
> news:g39pg.434$PE1.242@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> > Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:
> >> M E Leypold wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> That too. I stopped reading after "is 10% of the cost of an ACT"
> >>> since 5000 is not 10% of 15000.
> >>
> >>
> >> Sorry, I remembered $1500 (which is 10% of $15000), but that's only for 
> >> the Windows version. The Linux version is unaccountably much more. I 
> >> guess they think people who use a free OS have more money available for 
> >> compilers.
> >
> > Though the annual maintenance [for Aonix Ada on Linux] is cheaper:  $1000 
> > vs $1495.  The break-even point is in seven years.  I agree that it is an 
> > odd pricing structure.
> >
> 
> One more data point.  The last time I enquired the cost was either $10000 or 
> $12000 for 10 developer seats, and that was the minimum.  But that was many 

You're talking about ACT's offer now? We have been talking about Aonix.

> years ago.  We wound up going with ObjectAda at the time which was closer to 
> $500 per developer with no minimum.  At the time we also received a discount 
> from Aonix by purchasing 5 licenses.

I've asked ACT and Aonix for price quotes some time around the
beginning officiating 2005. That was when we did a bid on some
projects where we thought the ability to fall back to a commercial
compiler would perhaps come handy at least in the development stage
(admittedly the idea was to use a commercial compiler during 2 years
of development and maintenance and fall back to an open source
compiler for maintenance when the 

I might remember wrongly, so take all that cautiously:

 - ACT just returned with a number of question (for how many people,
   size of your shoes etc), no price was quoted. Since I aimed for a
   standard package and also wanted a standard price list to give a
   customer an idea how much the transition to Ada (instead of C++
   ...)  would cost, I left it there. I gathered the > 10K fee at that
   time from usenet and that was enough as a lower bracket to remove
   ACT from the considerations in this case.

 - Aonix (I think) actually deigned to answer and at that time you had
   to buy support for 5 developers minimum (at ~ 1000.- EUR per
   seat). Since I'm working freelance most of the time (with changing
   affiliations) and don't have a splut personality I felt somewhat
   cheated here.

By the way: Today, when I went to Aonix' site I find a PDF
http://www.aonix.de/pdf/adt.pdf (which is supposedly the "AonixADT
Product Line Overview"). Surprisingly I need a password to open that
PDF. Seems you need a support contract to see Aonix' product line.

I think both ACT and Aonix could do better in the CRM department. :-/

But to wrap it up:

 - ACT charges 10K - 15K minimum Since pricing seems to be highly
   individual (they talk about a matrix they have to decide on the
   price), you have to ask in every single case.

 - Aonix charges ~ $1000 per developer on Linux but you have to buy
   the windows license separately and the minimum number of seats to
   buy is 5 (makes it ~5000 for the smallest license on Linux).

As I said I could be wrong: Those people are not very forthcoming with
pricing information and I have a hard time finding any pricing list on
their web pages -- perhaps they are much too used to individual
government and big company contracts.

This is also one of the reasons I'd really recommend RR Software
(Janus Ada): They have a price list on their site, which is exactly
what Mr Joe Small Developer surfing along would like to have.

If representatives of the afore mentioned companies read this post I'd
suggest that they just correct any mistakes and misunderstandings.

Regards -- Markus