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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,24ac770ebf312b7a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: "Steve Whalen" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Next Ada compiler for Debian: the votes so far Date: 22 Sep 2005 00:20:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1127373639.533145.315510@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> References: <87u0gjd8kj.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <87zmq7zi2g.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.238.140.172 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1127373650 20301 127.0.0.1 (22 Sep 2005 07:20:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 07:20:50 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: G2/0.2 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com; posting-host=68.238.140.172; posting-account=GBMmzA0AAABrZ0dHOASa3b2Cdf-RliH9 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5019 Date: 2005-09-22T00:20:39-07:00 List-Id: Thanks for this summary. I think these are by far the most important issues to be included in the Debian log (or whatever it's called). It would be nice if a sponsor could be found to pay AdaCore to do GMGPL releases periodically, but I'm starting to wonder if AdaCore/ACT always intended to "go proprietary" as soon as they could. With as "soon as they could" being whenever another "version" of Ada was standardized that was NOT called Ada95. During the first 5 years or so of GNAT's life AdaCore seemed to genuinely believe in the benefits of having a completely free compiler available, at least they convinced me. Of course they may just have been saying it because the DOD was paying them to make a free compiler available and so they had to. It's my understanding that the GNAT Ada95 compiler was basically built with DOD $$$ on the condition that it be free for all uses and users (but ACT and others were free to charge for support as long as a compiler remained free). This specifically included the libraries being under a LGPL / GMGPL type license. If the Ada2005 compiler from ACT is built primarily on the Ada95 compiler (as opposed to a complete rewrite of the compiler code and support tools) then I think AdaCore is coming pretty close to violating the spirt (but I'm sure not a lawyer's reading) of the DOD contract that created GNAT. By "closing" off the creation of commercial applications with the GPL'd Ada2005 compiler the Ada2005 compiler would no longer meet that requirement of the original Ada95 DOD compiler contract. I hate to see this happen to what I think is one of the best decisions made by our Department of Defense (creating the free Ada95 compiler to help offset the removal of the "Ada mandate"). What AdaCore is doing certainly seems to violate the spirit of the contract that enabled the creation of GNAT (unless of course the Ada2005 compiler uses none of the work product created under the DOD Ada95 contract in the Ada2005 compiler: my understanding is that Ada2005 contains a lot of Ada95 code but I haven't compared them). The bottom line is that neither GNAT nor AdaCore would exist without that DOD contract for Ada95. Something sure has changed: here's a lengthy but relevant quote from Robert Dewar from about 10 years ago (for anyone who doesn't know who he is, I'll keep it simple and call him one of the principle architects and driving forces behind the GNAT compilers up through at least release 3.xx and probably beyond): (quoting from comp.lang.ada: Robert Dewar Aug 2 1995, 12:00 am) ... For example, the contract between NYU and the Federal Government requires that the compiler be distributed uner the GPL and LGPL. Suppose instead that it had been distributed under the public domain. In that case, Ada Core Technologies (or any other company, but this most often happens with the original authors) could take the existing PD product, continue to develop it, market it at whatever price the market would bear, and treat it as a fully proprietary product. This would presumably be fine for those willing to pay big $$$ for Ada products, and might indeed make the GNAT authors richer. This scenario has certainly played itself out with other products that were initially in the public domain. The trouble is that then, although the public domain version continues to exist, it languishes, and pretty soon, is left in the dust by the commercial version, and people find themselves forced to pay high prices or left in the cold. The nice thing about the use of the GPL is that it entirely prevents this from happening. If someone pays SGI, or ACT, or any other company to enhance and maintain GNAT, then all the improvements and changes are guaranteed to be available to those who need an Ada compiler to work with but do not need commercial level support. This is a much better model for the whole community I think. Yes, of course it is the case that other Ada vendors would prefer to be able to grab public domain stuff without being encumbered by the restrictions of the GPL, so of course they would prefer that all the volunteers out there provide them with free code they can use. That's perfectly understandable. Now if this continued fredom were achieved at the expense of seriously limiting use of the resulting software, that would be an unfortunate side effect. In a world with no proprietary software, they there would be no issue. In recognition of a more practical world in which free software and proprietary software continue to co-exist, the modules of GNU C and G++ are distributed with four different levels of licensing ranging from the GPL, to completely unrestricted, with two other levels in between. The status of each module is chosen to achieve an appropriate balance between trying to maintain the free availability of the software and trying to maintain its reasonably unrestricted use. This has been quite comfortably achieved with GNU C, which has been used by a wide variety of users in a wide variety of commercial and technical settings, and there is no reason to think that GNAT will not be able to achieve the same appropriate balance. (end of quote) I think AdaCore/ACT has lost that "appropriate balance". Steve