From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,effb80d4bb7716dd X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@gnat.com Subject: Re: Wanted: Ada STL. Reward: Ada's Future Date: 1999/02/05 Message-ID: <79eq4l$m1a$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 440965691 References: <790f4q$3l@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net> <36B856E4.D921C1D@bton.ac.uk> <79cc3q$mms$1@remarQ.com> <1999Feb4.141530.1@eisner> <79d0db$6h5$1@remarQ.com> <1999Feb4.171318.1@eisner> <79dp2o$s2h$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36ba730b.35540068@news.pacbell.net> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x12.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Feb 05 13:02:17 1999 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-02-05T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <36ba730b.35540068@news.pacbell.net>, tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) wrote: > > GNAT does NOT use the LGPL, whatever > >made you think it does? > Aye, that's *exactly* the question. > Perhaps if a new sacred terminology hadn't been > invented for the FSF religion, but ordinary words had > ordinary meanings, fewer people would > misunderstand or feel that they didn't understand. > Company lawyers don't freak out when they see a Microsoft > copyright, but they may say "what's this" when they see a > "copyleft". Note that Tom is involved with selling proprietary software, so it is certainly in his interest that people be worried about this :-) But in fact, there is no problem here. Lawyers do not "freak out" when they see the General Public License, which incidentally does not use the term "copyleft". This license is a legal document, written by lawyers with the help of technical people, intended to be read by both users and lawyers (just like any other software license). Yes it can be confusing to people who have not read the license that the "free" in free software talks about freedom and not lack of $$$. This is an unfortunate ambiguity in English, but one that should not be too difficult for people to deal with (I assume that when people read a license plate that says "Live Free or Die", they do not think that this is about saving money!) Yes, that needs explaining, not to lawyers, since the GPL is quite explicit and clear (paragraph two of the preamble says: When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price.) but it does need explaining to non-lawyers, especially when they have been confused by posts such as those recently made by Tom and Larry. Lawyers certainly have no trouble understanding such language, and in our experience, we have had no trouble in interacting with lawyers who are reading the GPL. We have occasionally in the past, much less recently, run into situations where there have been rules against the use of "free software", but once the lawyers get their hands on the appropriate license agreements, they are then quite comfortable. The are often a bit puzzled that we would use a license agreement that is so generous, and so unconcerned with desparate protection of our "intellectual property", but they can easily understand that from the point of view of the licensee, all their requirements are met. It is definitely true that the term open software causes less confusion in some (non-legal) circles, since it emphasizes an important aspect of free software. However, there is open source software and open source software, and not all of it is anywhere near "free" in the sense of "freedom", so you also have to be careful with license agreements there too. The bottom line: the world of free software and open source software does not somehow free you of your obligation to carefully check that when you are using someone else's software you are not violating their leagl rights under the appropriate copyright law. Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies P.S. It's easier in other languages. ACT/Europe uses the slogan "GNAT, c'est libre, mais c'est n'est pas gratuit", but that's not easily translatable into English :-) -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own