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From: Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com>
Subject: Re: EGCS & GNAT Was (Re: GNAT versions)
Date: 1999/04/26
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Date: 1999-04-26T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <7g0qj1$1td0$1@Mercury.mcs.net>,
  les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) wrote:
> It is mostly bickering about the meaning of the GPL.  As
> in how you can distribute even one bugfix copy of
> something with a license that ensures the right to source
> and the right to redistribute the source while witholding
> the source

There is nothing in the GPL that ever *requires* *anyone*
to distribute *anything* [other than the source for a
program for which they distribute the objects] under
*any* circumstances. Indeed a license which has any such
requirements is not regarded as a legitimate free software
license by the FSF (this is one of the contentions, the
open source software folk to do not make this distinction)

> and insisting that the recipient not redistribute?

Any such insistence would be a clear violation of the GPL.
For example, if you distributed GPL'ed software along with
a non-disclosure agreement which restricted the further
distribution, this would violate the GPL. You can
explicitly ask people not to do it, explaining why you
would prefer them not to redistribute, but that's only
a request. At ACT, we don't even make such explicit
requests.

I suspect there *are* situations that are murky, for
example surrounding the GCC work being done for Merced, but
at ACT we never have any restrictive requirements, since,
as noted above, these would clearly violate the GPL, and
you are right, to have such restrictions would make no
sense, which is why the GPL does not permit them.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


  One or the other doesn't
> make sense.
>
> >As an Ada fan, I would much prefer the versions of Ada
available
> >(from all sources) were as defect-free as possible, so
those who
> >are not already firmly in the Ada camp will not get
disuaded by
> >encountering defects.
>
> If the old versions are perfect, why is there ongoing
development?
>
>   Les Mikesell
>    les@mcs.com
>

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