Re: can one build commercial applications with latest gnat and other licenses related questions...

["Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam.not.jrcarter@acm.not.spam.org>]

M E Leypold wrote:
> 
> Please follow my other posts :-). Regarding what I'd call "the
> environment", like bindings to a portable GUI toolkit or the OS.

OK. I have 2 GMGPL versions of GtkAda (2.2.0 and 2.4.0) and a GMGPL 
version of GNAT (MinGW 3.4.2) on my computer at the moment. (These are 
not the only compilers or bindings, just the ones that seem relevant to 
this discussion.) GtkAda is a portable GUI toolkit and GNAT comes with 
GMGPL bindings to the OS. All were free in terms of money. So I don't 
see what your complaint is.

It's also clear that ACT cannot legally impose the GPL on their 
compilers the way they have. The DOD contract that resulted in GNAT was 
to create an Ada-95 compiler that is free (in both senses of the word) 
and may be used to create un-free programs. (These requirements resulted 
in the GMGPL.) As there is no Ada-0X standard yet, there can be no 
Ada-0X compilers yet, and in fact the ACT GPL compilers are Ada-95 
compilers that implement some of the features of the Ada-0X draft only 
as an option. It seems ACT is calling them "200[5|6]" to try to get 
around the requirements of the contract, but it's clear that these are 
Ada-95 compilers with some extra features optionally available, and so 
in violation of the contract. (I wonder who at the DOD one would contact 
about this, since the AJPO no longer exists.)

Of course, IANAL.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Many times we're given rhymes that are quite unsingable."
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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