From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,3e26dfa741e64e5f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsfeed.kolumbus.fi!newsfeed1.funet.fi!newsfeeds.funet.fi!nntp.inet.fi!inet.fi!feeder1.news.jippii.net!reader1.news.jippii.net!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: Tapio Kelloniemi Subject: Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is now available References: <1126875543.239666.325290@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Message-ID: Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 16:45:59 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 217.30.176.187 X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@saunalahti.com X-Trace: reader1.news.jippii.net 1126889159 217.30.176.187 (Fri, 16 Sep 2005 19:45:59 EEST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 19:45:59 EEST Organization: Saunalahti Customer Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4806 Date: 2005-09-16T16:45:59+00:00 List-Id: "Ludovic Brenta" wrote: >Samuel Tardieu a =E9crit : >By the same token, I don't think that current paying customers of >AdaCore care. I think that the only ones who are really hurt by >AdaCore's decision are the SMEs and individuals who want to write >commercial software in Ada, but don't have the money to pay for >AdaCore's (or other companies') support contracts. Plus those who develop free software, but need to publish their work under another license so that other free software can link against it. These situations are, however, quite rare. >> The real problem is not technical. It is still possible to build a >> "clean" compiler which can be used on any kind of sources. The problem >> is political. AdaCore's move causes a lot of confusion in the >> community and may make companies unsure of what they can and can't do. > >I agree that there is confusion. A lot of companies would like "free >software" to be free for companies; it isn't. And it must not be, and neither it must be free for any other closed-source developers, who think that they can get money from something (or using something) that others give for free. >> I think it would have been much better if AdaCore had kept the GMGPL >> version, or if they had not complicated everything by providing >> GPL-only packages. The situation was simple (be an AdaCore customer or >> get your compiler from another source such as a GNU/Linux distribution >> or build it from FSF sources), it is now ugly (in some cases, you can >> get a GNAT compiler which doesn't allow you to use a GPL-incompatible >> license for your source code if you intend to redistribute the >> result). > >Yes, I agree it is ugly to have multiple sources for the same software >under different licenses. I hope that once the vote is over (next >Tuesday), the ugliness will be dealt with for good, at least as far as >Debian is concerned. BTW, Tapio Kelloniemi suggested providing both >GNAT GPL 2005 Edition and GCC 4.0 in Debian. I will not support two >different GNATs in Debian, especially if they have different licenses. I did not recommend supporting two editions, but rather including two editions (one super-stable for free software development) and another because it comes with the same GCC as the other system's compilers. Currently Debian includes three(?) GNAT versions (3.15, 3.4 and 4.0). Including GNAT-4.0 just because it does not have those special exceptions has no sense. Free software is always better than non-free, and if GNAT-4.0 is really buggy and no one has time to backport fixes and features from 4.1, I recommend including the super-stable and complete GNAT GPL. >> I still fail to understand this tactical move. > >Me too, but as I said, AdaCore is under no obligation to explain. If >they care to explain, I'm all ears, of course. If I were AdaCore I had done the same (but long time ago), so that SMEs and greedy individuals would not use something written by me to collect money for themselves. All of my software is GPL to prevent someone from using it in non-free projects. Free software is about giving without losing, non-free software has very different goals and it should not be built using free components, because non-free software developers don't want to help their neighbours, as free software developers do. >My message is that nobody has a right to *complain* about AdaCore's >decision, or even demand an explanation; but people should decide for >themselves what to do about it. The vote is designed to do just that. Many people have said that what AdaCore has done is not good for the image of Ada. I ask, isn't that bad for Ada's image that although new Ada2005 features are available in GNAT GPL, they are not provided for Free Software developers (in Debian or other distros). Generally people are lazy (or unable) to install software themselves (even from third-party provided binaries) and when searching for a language, they just choose C++ instead, since the most featureful (and stable) Ada compiler is not available. Those who have voted against GNAT GPL seem not to be mostly free software developers, but I think that Debian should consider free software developers as the primary target of their distribution, since its free. -- Tapio