Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is now available

["Björn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil>]

I would like to see some kind of official statement from AdaCore on the 
reasoning behind this license change. Personally I think it's a big 
mistake, but I would like to know why AdaCore think it's a good idea. I 
also very much want to know whether the license will be changed in the 
GCC source tree.

I'm very puzzled about the requirement for registration. There's not a 
word of explanation on the page that I can see. Why would I have to log 
in to download free software? It's not like I need yet another website 
account with yet another password to remember.

Finally, there's one thing that needs to get set straight:

Jamie Ayre wrote:
> AdaCore is pleased to announce the release of the GNAT GPL 2005 Edition 
> to provide Free Software developers, that is developers that distribute 
> their work under the GPL (GNU General Public License), the latest and 
> most advanced Ada 2005 software development environment.

When AdaCore explain free software on their website they typically link 
to the FSF site, but in this sentence they're not using the FSF's 
definition of free software. Free software is not at all synonymous to 
GPL. This page lists many other free software licenses, including many 
that are incompatible with the GPL:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html

None of those licenses (with reservation for possible rare exceptions) 
could be used on a program linked to the runtime library of the GNAT GPL 
2005 Edition. Not even those that are listed as GPL-compatible, because 
that's a one-way compatibility.

The GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is not for free software developers. It's for 
GPL-only developers. You can't even compile LGPL or GMGPL software (for 
distribution) with it.

-- 
Bj�rn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu