Re: MinGW Ada compiler licence question targeting commercial applications

[Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com>]

Hibou57 (Yannick Duch�ne) wrote:
> Now, what does � based upon one or more preexisting works � stands
> for ? If I use a compiler to compile an application, the work is in
> someway based on the compiler. So is it a derived work?

A derivative (not derived) work under copyright law is created
by a significant auctorial transformation of an existing work.
For example, the recent novel "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"
is a derivative work of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice".

A collective work is a work arranged by an author which contains
copyrightable elements; to create and distribute such a work
requires permission from the rights holders of those elements.

The process by which either a derivative work or a collective
work is produced is not generally relevant to the permissions
required to copy and distribute that work. In the general case,
the copyright of the compiler does not affect the copyright of
the compiled program.

However, if the output produced by the compiler contains
significant copies of copyrighted works, then that output is a
collective work and permission to copy and distribute it must
be acquired from the rights holders of the copied elements. I
don't know enough about the Ada compiler in question to know
whether this is the case.