Re: SGI GNAT Question? (Long)

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dewar@gnat.com wrote:

> As has been clearly stated before, 3.11p is derived from
> the commercial version 3.11b2,

From later comments in your post re the interpretation of the letter
versioning, you could go further and state that 3.11b2 "IS" 3.11p in source
tree and binary build terms. except that the "b2" bit means that it is ACT
supported, assuming that no-one has obtained a copy of 3.11b2 through a
third-party exercising their right under the terms of the GPL and
redistributing 3.11b2 in accordance with the terms of the GPL.

> and yes, of course all ACT software is covered by the GPL.
>

Specifically, you have clarified that the commercial GNAT is GPL code, ACT
irrespective of their commerical commitment to open source, are compelled
by the terms of GPL to release any and ALL future versions of GNAT under
the GPL whether they deem it a "commercial" or "public" release, and anyone
has the right to redistribute whichever version under GPL terms.

> > Am I write in presuming that the commerical version came
> > first, since if the GPL version came first, then
> > commercial version being a modification would be covered
> > by the GPL
>
> You are a bit confused here.

The confusion arises from repeated posts regarding different versions of
GNAT, namely public and commercial, which lead me to believe that GNAT/ACT
was a similar GPL model to the  GHOSTSCRIPT/ALADDIN model, whereby there is
a better version of the GPL ghostscript code available from aladdin for a
fee that is not distributed under GPL.

I believe this is possible  because the origin code was not GPL, Aladdin
just  release older versions under the GPL as a "tempter" for anyone with a
"newer" printer with unsupported drivers. Thankyou for the clarification,
there is no better "stable" version of GNAT available than the public
3.11p, though commercial Ada projects using GNAT would benefit from support
and that is solely available from ACT.

> So let me once again state how
> we work at ACT.
>
> Generally we prefer these [ commercial versions]  not be further
> distributed by
> our customers because

... but it is their right under the terms of the GPL, by which ACT are
allowed in the first instance to modify it.

> a) We don't want versions to be distributed publicly till
> they are in good shape and installation glitch free,

Strange that you inflict your "Beta" versions exclusively on your paying
customers. I think the success of open source has been based on public
releases feeding back to the developers bug reports. Having  run a
GNU/linux system for 3 years, I like many others are use to "feature-rich"
pre-releases.

> Chinese Walls
> -------------
>
> No such thing at ACT, the world of open source software
> does not need such things :-)

Granted, GPL code does not need protecting from itself.

Thank you for clearing up my misunderstanding, sorry if this is a rehash, I
have previously search dejanews, the FAQ and ACT homepage for "commercial"
"public" clarification of GNAT.  I do feel that question 4.2.1 of the
comp.lang.ada FAQ would benefit from the description of the versions
offered, as while I wouldn't go so far as to say ACTs position as both
commerical company and GPL code developer is unique in the GPL world, they
are certainly in a minority of GPL developers.