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: 103376,2c7b0b777188b7c4 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: "Ludovic Brenta" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL Edition Maintenance and Upgrades Date: 5 Oct 2005 04:10:19 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1128510619.707554.152420@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> References: <1128499462.850353.146890@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <9070id.mp6.ln@hunter.axlog.fr> 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 1128510624 3670 127.0.0.1 (5 Oct 2005 11:10:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 11:10:24 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <9070id.mp6.ln@hunter.axlog.fr> 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: f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com; posting-host=212.190.145.10; posting-account=ZjNXewwAAADyBPkwI57_UcX8yKfXWOss Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5400 Date: 2005-10-05T04:10:19-07:00 List-Id: Jean-Pierre Rosen a =E9crit : > Ludovic Brenta a =E9crit : > > [1] Quite to the contrary; the more I hear the "selfish argument", > > the more I feel inclined to package GNAT GPL Edition, just to teach > > selfish people that if they refuse to give, then they cannot take, > > as Georg Bauhaus said so nicely. > > > Not a formal vote, but... > > I think that this argument goes *against* the spirit of free software. > As far as I can understand, the basis of free software is "you can do > anything with this software, *except* deny to others the rights you have > received". Anything, including proprietary software. Precisely. With the GMGPL, you receive the right to see and modify the source code of the GNAT run-time; but you can also deny others this same right. The GPL is more "free" than the GMGPL, since with it you cannot deny others this right anymore. This is the "free" spirit as defined by Stallman and the FSF. The BSD license does allow you to deny rights to others, and has a different definition of "free". > The GPL edition is a big mistake made by AdaCore, both from a marketing > and a popularity point of view. If the community clearly refuses this > edition (and not having it in Debian is quite a strong indication), > maybe AdaCore will revise its policy. Yes, this is a possibility. > Moreover, I find it quite logical for Debian to just use the standard > GCC tree. Well, latest /=3D greatest, that's why I kept gnat 3.15p in Debian for so long instead of moving to GCC. Also, GCC is not "standard" by any measure (Ada is not a release criterion for GCC). In contrast, GNAT GPL is "standard" by two measures: it has been blessed by AdaCore, and is known to build ASIS, GLADE, GPS etc. correctly. > The whole issue is about packaging, not the compiler. I even think that > it would be OK to take the GPL edition, replace the offending packages > from the version in the GCC tree, and release the whole stuff under > GMGPL. But then, someone has to do the packaging... I contemplated this idea, but when I saw the size of the diff, I backed out. I did "diff -I^-- gcc/gcc/ada gnat-gpl-2005-src/src/ada" (note: ignoring comments and therefore the change of license) and found: GCC 3.4.4 to GPL: 16.0 megabytes GCC 4.0.1 to GPL: 11.0 megabytes GCC HEAD to GPL: 7.1 megabytes Even with 4.1, the difference is huge. And note that this is only the Ada part of GCC. --=20 Ludovic Brenta.