Re: AdaCore ... the Next SCO?

[M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

Martin Krischik <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> writes:

> Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> 
> >  The change of
> > license has no effect on corporations large enough to use GNAT Pro, or
> > on students, hobbyists, or free software developers.
> 
> Does it? The GPL is viral and booch, charles, AdaCL - all currently GMGPL
> would need to to relicensed to GPL now to be used with with GNAT/GPL.

Martin,

That is exactly why I asked earlier in the DTRAQ thread wether it is
really necessary to change GMGPL to GPL when linking sources with
these licenses in an excutable.

I never got an answer on that, instead got bogged down in questions
why I'd want that (I showed a possible scenario), the advice of the
kind "why don't you just buy ..." and discussions about the fairness
of it all.

But perhaps I did not ask explicitely or clearly enough, so let's try
again:

Can I:

  - Have sources S1, S2, S3 with S1 and S2 being dirtributed to me
    under the GMGPL whereas S3 is GPL.

  - I then compile S1, S2, S3 to X. 

  - Obviously X is covered by GPL: I must distribute S1, S2, S3 with X
    as the GPL demands.

  - But cant' I state that S1, S2 are under GMGPL -- that is, anyone
    receiving them is allowed to unbundle them from the source package
    of X (which is actually made up from 3 different trees) and can
    distribute them (S1, S2) as GMGPL sources or create other GMGPL,
    GPL or even closed executables from them.

Question: Is there any contradiction in the license terms or is that
permissible? 

Of course one would want to do that for whatever reason ever. I do not
want to discuss the fairness or unfairness of that or what one could
expect the authors of S1, S2 to do or not to do. I just want to know,
wether the authors of S1 and S2 (if they want) license S1 and S2 as
GMGPL and be sure that they can be used in aforesaid manner.

Or do they have to license as GPL to ensure "linkability" with a GPL
library?

Note that I thing, that the builder of the excutable X cannot strip
the linking exceaption from the libs S1 and S2 since he/she has not
changed the libs. He would have to refrain from using them if he is
not allowed to link with S3.

> AdaCL at least produced licence-warnings when compiled with GNAT/GPL. While
> licence warning are not legal the at least shows how AdaCore sees things.
> And this would mean that those libs become unavailable to closed source
> users.

ACT seems to disallow the situation I've been sketching above.

> 
> Martin
> 
> PS: Just in case you have not seen any warnings so far: all package
> specifications copied from the RM come with licence "unrestricted" and they
> are free in all respects. Only when you use a packaged not mentioned inside
> the RM the warning pops up.


Ah!

Regards -- Markus