Re: "proprietary", was Re: ada on linux

[Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com>]

In article <u5XX4.297$q86.81131@news.pacbell.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:

> "Anyone may use in any way" is not restrictive.  "You must
> send money
> to ___ if you give out copies to third parties" and "You must
send source
> code to ___ if you give out copies to third parties" are both
restrictions.

I will repeat what I said earlier, I think there is a
significant and important distinction between the position
that you cannot redistribute under any circumstances, and
the position that you can freely redistribute what you
received!

The above second restriction is *NOT* an accurate
characterization of the GPL restrictions. If you get
a copy of something under the GPL, you can freely
redistribute it. To fulfill the requirement for
distributing sources, you can simply point to the
original distribution. For example, if you download
the public binary version of GNAT, you can freely
redistribute it to others, you do NOT have to
distribute the sources yourself (the GPL never
requires distribution of sources along with the
objects, it just requires they be made available).
So when you pass on the binaries, people can get
the sources from the original location (e.g. cs.nyu.edu)
and that's just fine.

Tom, you seem to bat almost 100% when it comes to
misinterpreting the GPL. Time to reread it carefully :-)
Like any software license agreement, it needs careful
reading! To be fair, you did not mention the GPL in the
above, but I am willing to bet it is what you had in mind
when you wrote:

  "You must send source code to ___ if you give out copies to
   third parties"

The restriction that Tom alludes to above is a different
one. It affects only derived works. Here the restriction
is that if you create derived works (not permitted at all
with typical proprietary software), then you can still
distribute them, but you must distribute your mods in
source form (e.g. as a patch file).

Once again, with regard to the use of the word proprietary.
There is a very big difference between Free Software that
permits unrestricted redistribution and guarantees that the
sources are always available, and typical software (e.g. from
Microsoft or Ada vendors other than ACT) that significantly
restricts or forbids redistribution. Usually people use the term
proprietary software to refer to the latter. I don't really care
what term people use, just so long as they recognize the
distinction!

People are still often confused by this distinction. Some months
ago, I had to spend quite a bit of time on the phone explaining
to a procurement guy at Lockheed that he did NOT need us to
execute a source escrow agreement, because we had already
supplied all the sources, and Lockheed had all the access that
they would get from opening a source escrow (and more) already.
Finally he understood, and agreed that "OK, I guess we don't
need a source escrow in that case" :-)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologiesh


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