Re: Licensing Paranoia and Manual Compilation Issues

[alexander@xn--junivrs-e1a.com]

> I don't understand. The first para says it's good, the second says it's
> bad.

Perhaps I've misunderstood something regarding the licensing situation. Is not the reason you cannot use a bunch of AdaCore developed packages due to the fact that it's licensed under GPL without the runtime library exception, ultimately meaning your executable must be licensed under GPL too?

Let's assume someone made a tool to aid people with a repetitive task in Ada. Give that the GPL license and it'd be impossible for someone to "steal" (redistribute for a fee) the original author's code, still allowing people to learn from the code that makes up the tool.

In the second situation, I'm speaking of any library package offering nigh on essential functionality to a programming language (in this case Ada), that does not contain the runtime library exception. I believe that all code developed to ship with a compiler should contain that exception.

I will make sure to await further responses before I justify my belief mentioned in the previous paragraph, should I prove to having gotten something wrong.

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Whilst quickly scouring the Internet for some information that would substantiate the claim that some library package files do not contain the runtime library exception, I came across the (`GNAT.Regpat` source)[1], which does contain some form of the runtime library exception.

I presume perhaps that is an older source file than the one shipped with the compiler at this day (Copyright (c) 1996-2002)?

[1] https://www2.adacore.com/gap-static/GNAT_Book/html/rts/g-regpat__adb.htm