Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is now available

[Samuel Tardieu <sam@rfc1149.net>]

>>>>> "Martin" == Martin Krischik <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> writes:

Martin> Well GPL does not mean "hobby only" - just give your customer
Martin> the sources and all is well. Where is the problem?

Giving your customer the sources is not enough. You have to place them
under a GPL compatible licence[1]. Not *any* Free Software licence you
want.

Let's take an example: you choose to write an Ada program, under the
2-clauses GPL-compatible BSD licence, using AWS to offer a HTTPS
interface. Even though your program is distributed under a
GPL-compatible licence, even though AWS allows you to link with
whatever you want thanks to the GMGPL, you will not be able to
distribute a binary of your application because OpenSSL, used to
implementing HTTPS in AWS, uses a non-GPL-compatible Free Software
licence.

It means that such an application cannot be included as a binary
package in GNU/Linux distributions, even though all the sources are
Free Software, and even if you distribute all of them.

If the GNAT runtime was still using the GMGPL as it was before, there
would be no problem at all. Linking bits of GMGPL, 2-clauses BSD
licence and the OpenSSL licence is perfectly possible. Adding GPL bits
(the new GNAT runtime licence) in the middle makes it impossible.

[this post does not judge the value of respective Free Software
licences but shows that the new GPL-only licence adds new restrictions
to Free Software development in Ada when using the compiler provided
by AdaCore]

  Sam

[1] I think that AdaCore is wrong in saying that you can only
    develop GPL software with GNAT GPL 2005. My understanding is that
    if you distribute a binary compiled with GNAT GPL 2005, your
    program licence has to be *compatible* with the GPL. See
    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
-- 
Samuel Tardieu -- sam@rfc1149.net -- http://www.rfc1149.net/sam