Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?)

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <5ee5b646.0107140605.5c5d76eb@posting.google.com>, Robert Dewar
says...
>
>You miss the point entirely, the issue is not whom you distribute to,
>it is the conditions under which you distribute (that's what Free
>Software is about, the manner of distribution). And proprietary 

Yes, but if you don't distribute at all, I don't think it qualifies as either
Free Software, or proprietary.

>this definition definitely does not apply to ACT, the GNAT system
If you have ever created software which you didn't distriibute to anyone, then
you are in the same boat as us (whatever you want to call it).

>Is the copyright on your software really held jointly by the US
>Government and a private company? I doubt it, that would be very
>unusual, I think you are talking about data rights, not copyright
>here.

When I was at LMC, I understood that our contracts usually had us deliver the
sofware to the DoD as DoD-owned software, allowed them to also keep relatively
unencumbered copies for themselves under their own copyright. This was for
non-classified work. I wasn't really aware of these issues when I was doing
classified work, but I suspect we wouldn't have had a need for, or a desire for
keeping copies of classified software around after delivery.

I was told we have a similar situation here, but a closer look at our headers
reveals a different story altogether. Currently, our files appear to contain no
explicit copyright notice, although there is the name of the company and project
at the top. However, there is an interesting "distribution notice" (which I
imagine would be completely incompatable with the GPL, were that an issue). Note
that RAC is our customer, not my employer.

-- DISTRIBUTION "D":  Distribution authorized to Department of Defense (DOD),
-- Raytheon Aircraft Company (RAC), and DOD subcontractors only to protect
-- technical or operational data or information from automatic dissemination
-- under the International Exchange Program or by other means.  This protection
-- covers information required solely for administrative or operational
-- purposes, date of document as shown hereon 3 April 1998 ASC/YTK.

There's also a legal note. I'm a bit unsure how the GPL interacts with such
laws. Since its not a license clash, but rather a legal one, I'd think it would
still allow you to distribute with a GPL-licensed product (if it weren't for the
other clause above). You'd just be subject to prosecution if you gave it to the
wrong person or entity.
-- WARNING:  This document contains technical data whose export is restricted
-- by the Arms Export Control Act (Title 22, U. S. C. 2751 et seq) or
-- Executive Order 12470.  Violation of these export control laws is subject
-- to severe criminal penalties.  Dissemination of this document is controlled
-- under DOD Directive 5230.25

I hope that law doesn't prevent us from separately selling these things to the
Greeks, because that's what we are right now in the process of doing...

I'm guessing (and this is just a guess), that the company name at the top
creates a copyright in my company's name alone, despite the fact that it doesn't
explicitly assert copyright. Thus, despite what I was told verbally and repeated
here, handing it to any other party constitues a "distribution". The
"Distribution D:" clause is essentially a (non Free) license. I guess that's
what I get for not reading "the sources". :-)

Note for the record though, that we are *not* using Gnat as our Ada compiler. 

To get things a little more back on subject, my main complaint about making the
XML parser GPL (with no exemptions) is that there's no incentive for outside
professionals to contribute to it, as they won't be able to use their own work
on future (presumably proprietary) paid projects. I do understand perfectly that
this is a rather selfish complaint (if you turn your head and look at it just
right), except I'm personally not really all that intersted in XML. I've yet to
be convinced that it isn't the new "Java" on the hype machine. Generally I just
see it used for databases, for which CSV would be much better served and is much
better supported. So you can indeed trust that when I make these comments I'm
making them as an Ada supporter and Free Software developer, not as someone
who's just itching to create all kinds of proprietary stuff for free with your
XML software. 

---
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