Re: GNAT license rational (was [ANNOUNCE] XML/Ada 0.5 released)

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <H7iG6.2949$DW1.140771@iad-read.news.verio.net>, Vincent Marciante
says...
>We need a comment from RBKD regarding the rational for the special exception
>in GNAT's license.

I was around before that exception existed. What happened was that someone piped
up saying that their lawyers wouldn't allow them to use Gnat for their project,
as they were of the opinion that linking GPL-ed packages into their program
would require them to make the whole program GPL-ed. Thus to prevent this
scenario, all the package sources that aren't just part of the compiler itself
had an exception put in to allow linking them into an executable without
invoking any provisions of the GPL. That way GNAT itself is GPL'ed, but programs
created with it don't have to be.

Now if you are asking why this was done, rather than only allowing paying
customers that exception like they are talking about doing for the XML parser,
you would have to get a ruling from ACT on that one. But it really is their call
to make either way.

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