Re: ACT and the GPL (once again), was: Re: Cairo bindings and e-mail license virus bombs

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

Simon Clubley writes on comp.lang.ada:
>> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-ada/2014/10/msg00023.html
>
> Are we sure it's an official ACT statement and not just someone's
> opinion ?

It is a statement by an AdaCore representative in response to an
explicit request by a Debian Developer, on a public mailing list.  I
don't think it can get any more official than that :)

> That statement also doesn't match up with David's quote from ACT's
> email above, which is presumably more recent than the 29-Oct-2014
> Debian email linked to above.

No, David is guilty here; he omitted context, URL, attribution and
timestamp in that post, leading to your confusion.  The URL was in his
previous post:

http://lists.adacore.com/pipermail/gtkada/2009-June/003789.html

> It's also clear from that quote above that GtkAda is considered to be
> pure GPL as far as the distribution in Debian is concerned because
> that's where the Debian notes say Debian obtains the original package
> from.

"is considered" is not a legal term and we Debian Developers prefer to
obtain sources from AdaCore's public Subversion repository, not the
yearly tarballs, whenever possible.

> Sometimes ACT can be their own worst enemy when it comes to promoting
> Ada. :-( How often do the C++ people have to worry about this stuff ?

Right.  Hopefully the latest statement by AdaCore sets things straight.

--
Ludovic Brenta.