Re: Ada grammar

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <8fepn4$dta$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:

> Sure, as long as they somehow allow access to Gnat's sources.
> The only way they could possibly run into trouble would be by
> making modifications to the compiler itself, and refusing to
> provide the sources for the modifications.

Ted is saying this without knowing NEARLY enough about how ASIS
works to justify the above opinion.

Indeed it is the case for GNAT that *any* ASIS application is
very definitely a deriviative work of GNAT, since an ASIS
application consists of a program that is aggregated from
tool units, ASIS units, and GNAT compiler units.

If the units of the GNAT compiler were licensed under the
pure GPL, which most units are, then Ted's advice above
would be seriously incorrect. This is a good object lesson
in carefully checking licenses for yourself. You often find
advice on CLA that is definitely NOT properly researched :-)

However, the good news is that, as a result of quite deliberate
Ada Core Technologies policy, we have arranged that those
specific compiler units that are used by ASIS have the modified
GPL. Why? Precisely to allow proprietary tools to be constructed
using the ASIS interface. In fact we consider ASIS to be a good
definition of a reasonable division between the proprietary
and non-proprietary free software worlds when it comes to
the use of GNAT.

So the ultimate conclusion that Ted reaches is correct, though
the reasoning was faulty :-)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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