Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is now available

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

Niklas Holsti <nobody@nowhere.fi> writes:

> Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>> Please take into account that recent versions of ASIS and GLADE are
>> only available under GPL, not GMGPL.  The same is true for AWS,
>> GtkAda, XML/Ada etc. but is less of a concern because these libraries
>> are not tightly coupled with the compiler.
>> Please cast a vote on this forum.  This is the time to influence the
>> next version of Debian.
>
> I applaud Ludovic for arranging this vote (and I voted already).

Thanks.

> However, I think that Ludovic should not feel *bound* to choose the
> alternative that gets the most votes; at least I did not mean my
> vote to have that effect. I understood -- perhaps selfishly -- the
> question to be "what sort of GNAT compiler do you, as a Debian Ada
> user, need for what you are doing" and I voted from that
> perspective.

And you were right.  I am just standing by Debian's Social Contract,
clause 4: "We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free
software community".

> But perhaps the choice of the next Debian Ada compiler should depend
> more on attracting *new* Ada users. It seems to me that this would
> give more importance to good support of Ada 2005 and ASIS and GLADE,
> to make the full, modern Ada technology available on
> Debian. Therefore, I urge Ludovic to override my vote for a GMGPL
> GNAT if it conflicts with good support of Ada 2005, ASIS and GLADE.

Understood, but I wouldn't want to spend time and effort doing
packages that nobody wants to use.  Therefore I urge everyone here to
try and consider all aspects - philosophical, technical, practical and
timing-related - in their votes.

[...]

> I would also like to ask the group's opinion on a licensing issue
> related to the above. Suppose that GNAT GPL 2005 is chosen as the
> new Debian Ada compiler, but I want to install a GNAT with a GMGPL
> library. Supppose further that I get the sources for such a GNAT and
> compile it (compiler and libraries) with GNAT GPL 2005. The
> resulting compiler is under the strict GPL since it contains the
> strict GPL library. However, as I understand it, application
> programs compiled with the resulting compiler and linked with its
> GMGPL library are not GPL, but can be distributed as binary only.
> Do you agree? I know that no-one (?) here is a lawyer, but I would
> value your opinion on this.

The license of the compiler has no effect on executables; the license
of the run-time library has.  Therefore, you can legally use GNAT GPL
2005 Edition to compile a GMGPL version of libgnat (from the FSF), and
link your programs with that libgnat.

In fact, you could install GNAT GPL and libgnat GMGPL separately, and
use them together.  This may require some tweaking, but it is
feasible.  I think that the tweaking would be minimal if you mix GNAT
GPL 2005 Edition with libgnat-3.4.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.