Re: Ada and Mesa

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

James_Rogers says

"The GPL does not prohibit the development of commercial products using GNAT.
It merely prohibits selling GNAT as a commercial product."

Even that is false, if anyone wants to sell GNAT for $2,000,000, they
are welcome and this does not violate the GPL in any way. Of course they
may not sell many copies given that (a) there are other sources and
(b) what the GPL does require is that anyone who has the program can
freely give it away to others with no restrictions or no requirement to
charge.

What the GPL does (the standard one, not our modified library one) is
require that any program that incorporates any GPL code, if it is
distributed, must be distributed under GPL conditions (source made
available, and free re-distribution permitted).

People often think that there is some required distribution of GPL'ed
software, but that's definitely not the case. ACT continues to make
GNAT freely available because that is the policy of ACT, not because
it is required by the GPL. There is nothing in the GPL to stop ACT
from refusing to distribute any further versions of GNAT, and to
simply continue developing it internally for its own use. However,
ACT has a commitment, nothing to do with the GPL, to continue to
make future enhancements of GNAT freely available.

None of this discussion aplies to programs compiled using GNAT in any case,
such programs have no restrictions, because of the modified GPL that we
use for the run time library. If you generate a program using GNAT, you
can sell it, license it, keep it as proprietary as you like, refuse to
distribute the source etc. 

We certainly like to see GNAT being used to develop tools and applications
that are freely availale like GNAT itself, but that's just one possible
use of GNAT, and as I said before, many of ACT's customers are indeed
developing proprietary programs using GNAT. Furthermore, their continued
support of GNAT helps ensure that it remains freely available, so everyone
benefits!

Robert Dewar
ACT