Re: Precisely why can't official FSF GNAT maintainers copy bug fixes in GNAT & its GCC-contained runtime en masse from GNAT GPL Community Edition?

["Dan'l Miller" <optikos@verizon.net>]

On Thursday, May 3, 2018 at 4:17:30 PM UTC-5, Paul Rubin wrote:
> "Dan'l Miller" writes:
> > Precisely why can't official FSF GNAT maintainers copy bug fixes ••and
> > brand new features•• in GNAT & its GCC-contained runtime en masse from
> > GNAT GPL Community Edition?
> 
> I thought the licenses were incompatible.

They appear to be 100% compatible:  FSF appears to be quite able to override at will AdaCore's removal of the Runtime Exception.  Apparently nothing stops FSF from doing so; just mechanically turn the legal crank of various clauses in GPLv3, so therefore no incompatibility.  I am claiming that ••no one other than•• FSF or an official actor therein (e.g., perhaps an official maintainer; certainly an officer/member of the 501(c)(3)) can re-license files to which FSF is the irrevocable assignee.

>  The FSF runtime has the GPL
> runtime exception and the GNAT runtime does not.  Speaking just for
> myself, I'd expect the FSF to not accept such a feature if it was aware
> of the issue with its licensing.
> 
> You also asked

I asked no such thing.  I made logical statements regarding merely turning the crank of logic and plain-English meaning of English prose.  Statements are not questions.  I did in fact ask a quite different question:  Precisely why [in the license, in case law, in judicial precedent] can't official FSF GNAT maintainers copy bug fixes in GNAT & its GCC-contained runtime en masse from GNAT GPL Community Edition?

> what would happen if the FSF accepted the feature without
> being aware of the issue, then found out about it later.  That doesn't
> seem different than if someone contributed code that they weren't
> entitled to contribute (e.g. they wrote it at work, and didn't get the
> contribution cleared by their employer).  Again IANAL but ISTM that once
> the FSF found out, they'd have to say "oops, despite our efforts to
> check out the license of the contribution before we accepted it, it
> somehow got past us so we have to withdraw the code since it's not
> really ours

  But the rights to copy have already been irrevocably •assigned• to FSF, so in fact it really truly is FSF's at some point prior to AdaCore releasing GNAT GPL Community Edition.

> to release under those terms."  That doesn't sound
> conceptually different to me than when someone uploads an unlicensed
> song to Youtube and then Youtube has to take it down.

  The rights to copy the song were not assigned to the uploader.  The rights to copy the song were not assigned to YouTube.  Non sequitur.

> I'd also add that again I'm speaking just for myself, but ISTM that the
> FSF is a pro-GPL organization whose goal is for all of the world's
> software to be GPL.  It sometimes uses non-GPL licensing such as the
> LGPL and the library runtime exception for specific programs as tactical
> maneuvers in pursuit of the larger goal, like in chess, where you might
> sacrifice a pawn to get closer to checkmating the other player's king.

So are the official maintainers of FSF GNAT merely expendable pawns in the game?  Should someone tell them about their apparent status?

> So I wouldn't expect it to go looking for ways to circumvent Adacore's
> choice of the pure GPL.  It *likes* the GPL and is unlikely to see
> GNAT's use of the pure GPL as being bad.
> 
> Anyway, when you

“you” = AdaCore here?

> go around trying to subvert someone else's

“someone else” = FSF here?

> licensing
> choices like you seem to be proposing, you're also inviting the rest of
> the world to subvert *your* licensing choices.  It's better to stay
> clean, I would say.

Remember, wasn't AdaCore the party who removed the FSF's Runtime Exception via a script •after• AdaCore irrevocably assigning the source code to FSF?  Who is doing the subverting of whose license-choice on files for which who owns the right to copy under assignment?  Answering these questions truthfully is quite awkward.