Re: Answer of Request to AdaCore on licensing Status of GtkAda 2.4.0

["Steve Whalen" <SteveWhalen001@hotmail.com>]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> Steve Whalen a écrit :
> > One thing I'd request would be for you to clearly distinguish between a
> > GtkAda or Florist Debian package that is GMGPL and a pure GPL version,
> > when I'm looking at packages in aptitude or a similar package
> > management tool.
>
> I posted a request for comments on 2006-07-14 on this group, where I
> asked whether or not I should have parallel versions (GPL and GMGPL) of
> libraries. I also said, I think clearly, that I was unwilling to take
> this additional burden by myself; therefore, people in need GMGPL of
> libraries in Debian were strongly advised to get in touch with me and
> offer help.
>  ...

I phrased my question / request badly.  I was not asking you to do more
work.  I already know there probably would NOT be an Ada compiler in
Debian exept for your work, which I very much appreciate.

> ... I will consider adding warning statements in the package descriptions, ...

I guess I was hoping you could do that without too much trouble.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something, but I thought that as long as
anyone has an apt preferences that includes Sarge, and testing / Etch,
both GMGPL and GPL versions of Ada libraries and compilers would be
available in aptitude / dselect / etc.

GtkAda having version 2.4 and 2.8 available could get confusing without
some fairly visible means of distinguishing GMGPL from GPL versions.  I
agree that programmers should know the license of the software they're
downloading and using, but I think it's fairly rare that the "utility"
of a Debian package changes significantly going from one version number
to a higher number, as happens when going from 3.x to 4.x in Debian Ada
compilers or GtaAda from 2.4 to 2.8....

> ... I don't need encouragement, I need help. ...

I wish I had the time to maintain one or more of the GMGPL libraries or
compilers myself, or the budget to assign one or more people to do it,
but I don't.

So we will just have to live with the death of GMGPL Ada (and thus
probably Ada).  That's why I was so upset when AdaCore started down
this path months ago.  I knew this was where we'd end up....

Only AdaCore can keep both GMGPL and GPL versions of the compilers and
libraries it maintains up to date without significant effort and
expense.  

Steve