Re: Standard Library Interest?

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> Right. I can see that and anticipat that objection on the part of the 
> vendors. But at the end of the day, you are not going to get something 
> for nothing. We could jam a whole gigantic library into the standard and 
> they'd have to support it or admit they don't have a "Full" Ada 
> compiler. (I've already observed why we *don't* want it in the standard, 
> but assume for a minute it was there in order to *force* the vendors 
> into providing it.) They could each pay the cost of building that huge 
> library and each pay the cost of supporting that library and each suffer 
> individually.
> 
> ***OR***
> 
> The vendors could work as a team on this and share the expense. Form up 
> some sort of organization to take care of the library and support it. It 
> comes from a single source and they could relatively easily point any 
> customer support issues to that source. Its even conceivable that the 
> organization they start could become self-sustaining - generating 
> revenue out of their own support contracts or software sales or 
> royalties or whatever else they might provide.
> 
> Here's the thing: Nobody is going to ge a Conventional Ada Library free. 
> *Someone* is going to bear the cost of producing it and maintaining it. 
> Even if that "Someone" is a bunch of volunteers. If you want to have 
> reasonable control over the library and get it done on a schedule and 
> have it meet various expectations, that's going to cost something. 
> However, that doesn't mean the cost has to be huge or back-breaking for 
> each vendor. Some sort of cooperative effort and creative licensing 
> might enable it to get constructed and supported without having to incur 
> huge costs.
> 
> MDC

And at the end of the fiscal year, the cost will be passed back
to you and me. After all, nobody's just going to eat the charges
"just because". So I think that is a given.

The point is how to get it all rolling. IMO, which is obviously
a bit different than yours, you'll not get things rolling waiting
for the vendor to initiate this effort. Especially if it involves
in multiple vendors working together. Not impossible mind you, just
unlikely. That is like trying to reach consensus in a meeting
with 15 people in it, vs a small group of three.
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg