Re: ada < - > java bindings wanted

[Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com>]

In article <37BEB3BB.78C0B230@acenet.com.au>,
  Geoff Bull <gbull@acenet.com.au> wrote:
> If you don't like the code, or are simply not interested
> in it, I can't imagine you care too much about the license.
> If you like the code and the license is a problem for
> you, we can be probably convinced to use a different license.
>
> You might find "idiosyncratic" licenses a problem.
> However, for us, code that is straight GPL or LGPL
> is a problem.


Just to be clear, we are interested in this code, and at least
one of our GNAT Professional customers is using it. The license
is only a problem because it is non-standard. We certainly do
not insist on any code we use being GPL'ed. More permissive
licensing such as public domain, or BSD is quite fine. We
insist on open source status, and we much prefer licenses
that are free software compatible, but we can certainly
consider more restrictive open source licenses in our
environment. Indeed we tool partner with a number of
companies offering useful proprietary tools that work
well with GNAT.

Our primary interest here is in helping our customers, but
we have to be a little careful in passing on code if we
don't understand the license well.

One of the guarantees that we make to customers right now is
that they can use GNAT libraries without any concern about
acquiring problematic licensing conditions that would apply
to their generated programs. This is of course achieved in
our case by use of the GNAT modified GPL (GMGPL). Any license
that is at least this non-restrictive is fine with us.

In fact a library released under the pure GPL (such as the
public versions of Cygwin) is NOT acceptable for inclusion
in GNAT libraries, precisely because it does cause
troublesome licensing issues for generated programs.

You have to be very careful with license conditions, and as
I have said many times before, this is equally true whether
you are talking Free Software, OSI-certified software, or
proprietary software.

More than once I have run into customers who were accidentally
violating the Cygnus copyright by including the pure GPL'ed
version of Cygwin in their programs, and then not adhering to
the consequent GPL'ed status of the resulting programs.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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