GNAT GPL 2005: Too clever by half?

["Marc A. Criley" <mcNOSPAM@mckae.com>]

Maybe AdaCore is smarter than we've realized, intentionally or perhaps 
accidentally?

Consider this scenario:

Consider an Ada enthusiast or one-man-shop (OMS) developing a particular 
kind of product in Ada.  The "particular kind", or nature, of this 
product is such that Ada's role is only as its implementation language. 
  To a user it's just a black-box piece of software.  Unless it actually 
says "Ada" or they see the source code, they would never know Ada was 
involved.

Products such as container libraries, math libraries, etc., are not what 
I'm talking about, since you either have to interact with them as Ada, 
or be linking in the Ada runtime (and have to conform to any of its 
licensing constraints).

So, accounting software, CAD programs, word processors, that sort of 
stand-alone black-box application is what I'm going to address.  I'll 
use DTraq as an example, since it's the one I'm most familiar with :-)

DTraq is a data logging, monitoring, and playback application usable for 
development and test.  The current version (0.986a) does Ada code 
generation and requires compiling and linking that code, but the next 
release (scheduled for the end of this year) eliminates all that and 
will appear as a black box application to the user.  DTraq only works 
with Ada applications right now, but will be enhanced to support C++ and 
Java in the coming year.

DTraq has been licensed under the GMGPL, as has most other GNAT aided 
software developed by Ada enthusiasts.  If I were to use the new GNAT 
GPL 2005, I would pretty much be driven to changing that to the full GPL.

And then it struck me.

So what?

If I were a greedy capitalist, that might even be a good thing, in a 
bizarre, twisted way.

If I sell DTraq to some customer, I'll have to provide them the source 
code.  If they're not an Ada shop, if no one there knows Ada, if they 
couldn't care less about Ada, then I don't care that they have the 
source.  If they want support and maintenance, they're going to have to 
have a support contract with McKae--the fact that they have the entire 
source code base for the product is irrelevant to our business 
relationship, since they're not going to do anything with it.

If the customer does themselves develop non-free Ada or even GMGPL 
software, they can't reuse any of my software because it's under the GPL 
(unless they want to starting GPLing their own stuff).  If they do, then 
it's the usual GPL license violation, and you call down upon them the 
wrath of Stallman.

So here's the net result:

If you're hard over to free software, GPL GNAT 2005 is just fine and 
dandy, since it'll force people to make their software free (libre), 
which is the goal of the FSF.

On the other hand, if you're a greedy proprietary capitalist developing 
a product whose external functionality and use is language independent, 
GPL GNAT 2005 is also just fine, since by the requisite GPLing of your 
application, it will keep the vast majority of your customers from 
taking your source code and doing anything other than reading it.  All 
they'll be able to do with your product then is _use_ it (and perhaps 
modify it on their own, _if_ they have the expertise to do so).

I'm mulling this over...

-- Marc A. Criley
-- McKae Technologies
-- www.mckae.com
-- DTraq - XPath In Ada - XML EZ Out