Ada Core Technologies, Inc (ACT) continues to make its high quality Ada 95 compiler, GNAT, available at no charge to all users including universities, and many universities are currently using GNAT to teach Ada in the classroom, and are using GNAT as a research tool.
In addition to making the software available at no charge, ACT has announced a specially priced university support program for those universities that require rapid turn around response to any problems encountered in using the GNAT system. ACT's primary business is the provision of high quality commercial support for GNAT users.
ACT does accept problem reports from all users, including those users who do not have support contracts, but we are unable to provide rapid or guaranteed response to problem reports from unsupported users.
The Academic Support Contract (ASP) option allows universities to take advantage of the excellent and highly responsive ACT support for GNAT, using the Internet as a support medium.
Our normal price for support is $1200 per individual user per year. The ASP price is $1500 per year. This provides site support with a single contact point for all use of GNAT at a university on all supported platforms. The support under the ASP is at a priority immediately below that of full supported users, but ahead of unsupported users, and ahead of other activities such as continued development.
Many universities will find it practical to simply use the free versions of GNAT, which continue to be released periodically with improvements and corrections. The ASP option allows universities needing high quality rapid response support, e.g. for supporting critical research, or for supporting the use of GNAT in critical course work, to take advantage of the resources of Ada Core Technologies.
For further information, contact support@gnat.com.