Mr. Brashear said(speaking of Microsoft): "They're interested in "what their
customers want"
rather than conformance to standards.  I guess that's what you get when you
have a monopoly.)"

If most government institutions(or stubborn individuals) strongly wanted Ada
and Open Source, they could convince Microsoft to integrate/support a Visual
Ada in Visual Studio via tax incentives or other military/non-military
non-violent actions :)
--
Santé bonheur!
David Marceau
Analyst/Programmer - Firepower Systems
Land Software Engineering Centre - DND Canada
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613.995.1126
http://homestead.deja.com/user.davidmarceau4432/files/DavidMarceau.html



-----Original Message-----
From: Brashear, Phil [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 1999 6:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What the competition looks like


David Marceau said (speaking of Microsoft):  One big problem...they're not
into open source.

Another big problem with Microsoft and Ada -- they're not into
standardization.  You can pretty much guarantee that a Microsoft Ada would
have additional features not permitted by the standard and would ignore
features that are required by the standard.  See Visual C++ for numerous
examples.

(I've talked with some Microsoft personnel about validation of their C/C++
and Fortran products.  They're interested in "what their customers want"
rather than conformance to standards.  I guess that's what you get when you
have a monopoly.)

Phil

Philip W. Brashear
EDS Conformance Testing Center
4646 Needmore Road, Bin 46
P.O. Box 24593
Dayton, OH  45424-0593
(937) 237-4510
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http://www.eds-conform.com