Re: GNAT GPL 2005: Too clever by half?

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

"Marc A. Criley" <mcNOSPAM@mckae.com> writes:
> 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...

Ah, the beauty of free software will never cease to amaze me.

But I can think of two flaws in your reasoning.  One, your customer
could hire anybody to do the maintenance; they don't have to hire you.
AdaCore solves this by hiring all the experts who are good enough to
tamper with the compiler, but depending on your product this may or
may not be possible.  The second flaw is if a greedy capitalist wants
to sell Ada development tools - e.g. code coverage, static analysis or
whatnot.  Then the customer can be expected to be quite literate with
Ada.

Me personally, I refuse to purchase or recommend any software if I
can't see and compile its sources for myself :) Call me a control
freak.

I'll repeat once more: I personally have no objection to libgnat being
GPLed.  And now today's idea: if AdaCore came out of the closet and
said "from now on we do dual licensing like TrollTech, MySQL or
Sleepycat", I'd have no problems with that, and I'd find it difficult
to sympathise with "greedy proprietary capitalists".

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.