Re: can one build commercial applications with latest gnat and other licenses related questions...

["Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

M E Leypold writes :
> Ludovic Brenta writes:
> > The only thing the first customer can do to prevent that is to sign a
> > contract with you, whereby you assign your copyright to him (which as I
> > understand is not legal in Germany), or you agree not to distribute
> > your program to anyone else.  At this point, the GPL gives the four
> > freedoms to the (sole) licensee, while at the same time the contract
> > restricts *your* freedom to redistribute. If I were a customer, I would
> > systematically insist on such terms when I bought custom-made software.
>
> Exactly. Two complications arise:
>
>  - I don't want to hand over exclusively my container and my widget
>    library :-).

You can stipulate that in the contract; you can say anything you want
in a contract. For example:

ARTICLE 1

The developer licenses the Program P and the Libraries L1, L2, of which
he is the author, to the customer, under the terms of the GPL.

ARTICLE 2

The developer agrees not to distribute the Program P to any third party
without written consent of the customer, but remains free to distribute
the Libraries to other parties.

ARTICLE 3

The customer agrees to pay the sum of X to the developer.

Signed, etc.

>  - The customer, as I have written, is not sure, wether such a
>    contract with me is binding. After all: I have the source, the libs
>    are under GPL -- doesn't that entitle me to distribute under GPL (a
>    right I cannot waive w/o the GPL lapsing for the libs).  So the
>    customer is not sure. "Not sure" in business translates as
>    "risk". Instead of jumping through the hoops to consult a lawyer,
>    who might or might not give a definite answer to that, they decide
>    to go with another offer that looks less fraught with ifs.

IANAL either, but I understand that a signed contract overrides any
unsigned license, provided that:
- the contract is legal (does not force any party to do illegal things)
- there is a compensation clause (i.e. you receive money or other form
of retribution; a contract has to have obligations for both parties)

If you sign a contract whereby you agree not to distribute your program
to third parties, then your customer has full assurance, and can sue
you later for breach of contract. To reinforce the assurances, you can
even stipulate which court is competent should the need arise.

This remains true even if you license your program under a non-free,
closed-source, proprietary EULA. So, if your customer is really
concerned, they should have signed a contract with you already, even
before discussing the license terms.

> It doesn't equate to freedom in my book to have to refer to a lawyer
> all the time. Quite the contrary.

You need a lawyer to assist you in legal matters, just like you need a
physician to assist you in health matters and a butcher to assist you
in meat procurement matters, or like your customer needs a software
engineer to assist him in computer-related matters. This is orthogonal
to freedom.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.