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: 103376,81ad2a544a72a777 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,UTF8 Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nx02.iad01.newshosting.com!newshosting.com!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newspeer1.se.telia.net!se.telia.net!masternews.telia.net.!newsc.telia.net.POSTED!not-for-mail From: =?UTF-8?B?QmrDtnJuIFBlcnNzb24=?= User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7-1.1.fc4 (X11/20050929) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: FSF libgnat References: <87irvuejhc.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <87ek6iecj2.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> In-Reply-To: <87ek6iecj2.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: <2Pe5f.148604$dP1.506527@newsc.telia.net> Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 22:37:50 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 217.209.116.179 X-Complaints-To: abuse@telia.com X-Trace: newsc.telia.net 1129675070 217.209.116.179 (Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:37:50 CEST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:37:50 CEST Organization: Telia Internet Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5789 Date: 2005-10-18T22:37:50+00:00 List-Id: Ludovic Brenta wrote: > Linking libgnat into your program, whether statically or dynamically, > causes parts of it to be incorporated into your program (and, indeed, > causes your program to be a "work based on" libgnat, in GPL parlance). > Your program does not have to be GPL (by special permission), but > libgnat keeps its license, and that license requires that you provide > or offer to provide the sources of libgnat. In other words, you're saying that different parts of the same executable file will be covered by different licenses. Now *that* is messy! Let's look at the exception: "As a special exception, if other files instantiate generics from this unit, or you link this unit with other files to produce an executable, this unit does not by itself cause the resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by the GNU Public License." The wording seems to assume that the GPL would either cover the whole executable or none of it, but according to you it should be read as "...does not cause the *entire* executable to be covered by the GPL – just parts of it." So what happens when GMGPL code and code with a typical proprietary license is combined into a single file? The GMGPL says users are allowed to redistribute the file. The proprietary license says they're not. Are they only allowed to distribute parts of it? How do they know which parts? And who would want assorted shards of machine code anyway? -- Björn Persson PGP key A88682FD omb jor ers @sv ge. r o.b n.p son eri nu