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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,69c2247bc82f3aa7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: Towards a free GNU Ada Date: 1997/07/08 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 255516307 References: <3.0.32.19970706174103.006f4d74@mail.4dcomm.com> Organization: New York University Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-07-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Bob Leif said << I have only one problem with suggestion 2. I believe that any useful additions to a compiler that are initially made for GNAT and are NOT funded by ACT should be copyrighted in a form that they can be used by other Ada vendors. This includes being incorporated into these vendors commercial products. The cost to the other Ada vendors should be the same as that bourn by ACT. In short, I believe that we small operators and independent users should financially reimburse ACT, but at a reasonable price, and in a manner to maintain competition in the Ada compiler business.>> First, pele who contribute software to the world get to decide for themselves in what manner to do this. If someone writes a useful Ada library, they have several options: a) public domain b) GPL c) modified GPL: d) other similar licenses e) fully proprietary code Neither Bob Leif nor anyone else can dictate to authors how they should treat their own copyrighted works, and if someone writes something that you would like to use, but does not make it available to you at a fee you like,, you have no legitimate complaint, except simply not to use it. That being siad, the abopve suggestion indicates a serious misun derstanding of what is going on. In particularly I suspect that Bob is confusing the license fot the compiler itself, with the license for code generated by the compiler. These are of course completely unrelated. FOr example, i you want to write a proprietary replacement for one of the GNAT library routines, and refuse to distribute the source for it, and charge $10,000 for it, with no right to redistribute, then that's fine, and this unit can be used with GANT or with any other compiler by people who license it from you.. The fact that GNAT itself is under the GPL and its runtime is under the modified GPL has ZERO effect on your ability to use proprietary code with GANT> Now what Bob is really worrying about is some academic using the GPL, and makingtheir product unusable for him (as a small independent vendor). Let's see what is going on here ... First if someone uses the GPL for such a project, they are saying that they are willing to have other people use it, but ONLY if those other people are writing free software. Such a position is perfectly reasonable, and one that I don't see anyone has any business criticizing, it;'s the author's choice. Now of course if you *are* writing free software in Ada, you pretty much have to use GNAT. Why is this? Simp[le, it is because other vendoirs are unwilling to make their runtimes sufifsufficiently free3 that they are consistent with free software requirements. All this would take is for the vendor to say for theor runtime: a) the sources are available b) unlimited redistribution is allowed Now, no one is forcing any vendor to do this, but if you feel that ACT has an unfair advantage in that GNAT can be used to generate free software tware and your compiler cannot, that's a bit odd, since it is you who have decided to place the unaccceptable (for free software) restrictions on your software. Note that you could make your runtime this free while still keeping your compiler entirely proprietary -- as I note above the license on the compiler has nothing to do with the license on the runtime. Actually I think this whole line of reasoning is a giant red herring, people who are writing free swoftware generally are NOT paying for support on GNAT, and would not be interested in buying expensive proprietary tools anyway. If you are writing non-free software, then whether you are using GNAT or anything else, you cannot make use of this product from the mythical GPL academic, (I say mythical, because as far as I know, this concern of Bob's is hypothetical in any case). Note that if you *do* want your runtime units or library units to be usable by GNAT and by other compilers, then the modified GPL is just fine, and of course this is what ACT uses for its runtime. As a result, it is quite possible for other vendors to make use of these units, and at least in the past Aonix has (quite legally) distributed some units from the GNAT runtime for use with their compiler. If Bob is so concerned about a level playing field, then how about suggesting that he open up his code! ACT makes all its code available, and welcomes our competitors to use the ideas in the compiler itself, and the ideas or even the code (if kept open) of the runtime. We think it would be best for the Ada community if all vendors code were this open, and we practice what we preach :-) <> Robert Dewar Ada Core tore Technologies