Re: MinGW Ada compiler licence question targeting commercial applications

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Yannick Duchêne wrote on comp.lang.ada:
> On 20 juin, 15:24, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote:
>
> > you wish your program to use licensing terms incompatible with the
> > GPL, you have three choices:
>
> > - distribute your program in source form only, and require your
> >   licensees to build it for themselves.  Your sources need not be
> >   under GPL, since they are not linked to GtkAda.
>
> > - contact AdaCore, the upstream author, at sa...@adacore.com, and
> >   purchase a GMGPL license for GtkAda.
>
> > - do not distribute your program at all.
>
> ... or create your own Ada binding for GTK, step by step as needs
> comes (otherwise it will be too much work), beceause the GTK license
> is still LGPL unlike GtkAda (by the way, give another name to your own
> Ada GTK binding as GtkAda is already in use)

That boils down to "do not use GtkAda at all". Note that the same
reasoning applies to any library licensed under pure GPL; that
includes thr Ada run-time library of GNAT GPL Edition.

> http://www.gtk.org/the first words on the home page says
>
> > What is GTK+?
>
> > GTK+ is a highly usable, feature rich toolkit for creating graphical user
> > interfaces which boasts cross platform compatibility and an easy to use API.
> > GTK+ it is written in C, but has bindings to many other popular programming
> > languages such as C++, Python and C# among others. GTK+ is licensed under
> > the GNU LGPL 2.1 allowing development of both free and proprietary software
> > with GTK+ without any license fees or royalties.
>
> (notice that Ada is not quoted)

It is mentioned on http://www.gtk.org/language-bindings.html. It would
be nice if someone would send a patch to the GTK+ web site maintainers
to mention Ada on the front page.

--
Ludovic Brenta.