Re: GNAT GPL Edition Maintenance and Upgrades

[Jean-Pierre Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr>]

Ludovic Brenta a �crit :
> [1] Quite to the contrary; the more I hear the "selfish argument",
> the more I feel inclined to package GNAT GPL Edition, just to teach
> selfish people that if they refuse to give, then they cannot take,
> as Georg Bauhaus said so nicely.
> 
Not a formal vote, but...

I think that this argument goes *against* the spirit of free software. 
As far as I can understand, the basis of free software is "you can do 
anything with this software, *except* deny to others the rights you have 
received". Anything, including proprietary software.

The GPL edition is a big mistake made by AdaCore, both from a marketing 
and a popularity point of view. If the community clearly refuses this 
edition (and not having it in Debian is quite a strong indication), 
maybe AdaCore will revise its policy.

Moreover, I find it quite logical for Debian to just use the standard 
GCC tree.

The whole issue is about packaging, not the compiler. I even think that 
it would be OK to take the GPL edition, replace the offending packages 
from the version in the GCC tree, and release the whole stuff under 
GMGPL. But then, someone has to do the packaging...
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            J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
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