Re: Beyond GCC 3.0: Summing Up

[dewar at gnat dot com]

<<I'd guess that what this kind of customer is complaining about is the
absolute need for them to update because the old version will no
longer be supported soon after a new one is issued - typical vendor
policy. If the vendor is able to support old releases for one or two
years, the new releases every six monthes are not a problem for those
customers, they can play with them if they have some time and switch
if the version looks good, otherwise they can wait two years. Of
>>

You guess wrong, we do of course provide support for older versions (the
standard policy, easily extended on special deals) is to support versions
for one year after the new version comes out. But people still don't like
frequent releases because it creates pressure for them to consider upgrades,
and they feel like they should be the most recent version. (people = some
subset of people, others are fine with a six month release cycle).

<<I also know you have customers that are complaining that a release
every 18 monthes is too infrequent, vendor life is not easy :).
>>

I don't know about that, we have never gone 18 months between releases in
the history of GNAT, so that particular complaint is not one we have
ever had to deal with!