From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,3e26dfa741e64e5f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: "Ludovic Brenta" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is now available Date: 16 Sep 2005 05:59:03 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1126875543.239666.325290@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> References: <432919be$0$10539$4d4eb98e@read.news.fr.uu.net> <1126868191.519850.18060@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> <873bo5jjb6.fsf@willow.rfc1149.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.190.145.10 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1126875548 16945 127.0.0.1 (16 Sep 2005 12:59:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:59:08 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <873bo5jjb6.fsf@willow.rfc1149.net> User-Agent: G2/0.2 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; fr-FR; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040116,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) X-HTTP-Via: 1.1 SEVPXS01 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com; posting-host=212.190.145.10; posting-account=ZjNXewwAAADyBPkwI57_UcX8yKfXWOss Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4791 Date: 2005-09-16T05:59:03-07:00 List-Id: Samuel Tardieu a =E9crit : > Do you think that the DoD (the funder of the early GNAT versions) > intent was to restrict the use of GNAT to programs using the GPL > license and to AdaCore (which didn't exist) customers? I think the DoD didn't care, because it had the money to pay for any license it required. Or maybe they'd have insisted on GPL for everyone except the DoD, for fear that the Russians would build military software with GNAT :) By the same token, I don't think that current paying customers of AdaCore care. I think that the only ones who are really hurt by AdaCore's decision are the SMEs and individuals who want to write commercial software in Ada, but don't have the money to pay for AdaCore's (or other companies') support contracts. Like I said, these non-customers of AdaCore's are a potential market. > The real problem is not technical. It is still possible to build a > "clean" compiler which can be used on any kind of sources. The problem > is political. AdaCore's move causes a lot of confusion in the > community and may make companies unsure of what they can and can't do. I agree that there is confusion. A lot of companies would like "free software" to be free for companies; it isn't. It is "free" for end users. It gives freedoms to end users and imposes requirements on companies or producers of software. Additional confusion is fueled by "open source" (business- friendly attitude) and by the multiplicity of licenses. > I think it would have been much better if AdaCore had kept the GMGPL > version, or if they had not complicated everything by providing > GPL-only packages. The situation was simple (be an AdaCore customer or > get your compiler from another source such as a GNU/Linux distribution > or build it from FSF sources), it is now ugly (in some cases, you can > get a GNAT compiler which doesn't allow you to use a GPL-incompatible > license for your source code if you intend to redistribute the > result). Yes, I agree it is ugly to have multiple sources for the same software under different licenses. I hope that once the vote is over (next Tuesday), the ugliness will be dealt with for good, at least as far as Debian is concerned. BTW, Tapio Kelloniemi suggested providing both GNAT GPL 2005 Edition and GCC 4.0 in Debian. I will not support two different GNATs in Debian, especially if they have different licenses. > I still fail to understand this tactical move. Me too, but as I said, AdaCore is under no obligation to explain. If they care to explain, I'm all ears, of course. My message is that nobody has a right to *complain* about AdaCore's decision, or even demand an explanation; but people should decide for themselves what to do about it. The vote is designed to do just that. I anticipate that (1) this public vote will show that a majority of software developers reject the GPL for libgnat, (2) Debian will not include GNAT GPL 2005 Edition, (3) no other distribution will, and (4) AdaCore will probably take that into account when they think about a new public release. --=20 Ludovic Brenta.