Re: Answer of Request to AdaCore on licensing Status of GtkAda 2.4.0

[michael bode <michael.bode@laserline.de>]

"Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:

> I have received only three responses (in private), none of which
> contained a definitive statement offering help. I conclude that nobody
> cares enough to spend the time necessary to maintain the GMGPL
> libraries (or else, they think I'll just do the work for them, for
> free). So, unless someone steps up, I will simply replace the old GMGPL
> versions with the newer pure-GPL ones. Those who need GMGPL libraries
> will have to stick with Sarge, or become Debian maintainers themselves
> and reintroduce the GMGPL libraries under different names.

I will talk about GtkAda only because that's the only lib that I've
used so far and therefore I don't know if there are different
situations for the other libs.

There is now even more confusion than before. 

1. First I read what you heard from Adacore regarding GMGPL:

2.4.0 downloaded before day X: GMGPL
2.4.0 downloaded after day X: GPL
any later version: GPL

2. Then I read what Markus heard from Adacore:

any version: GPL

3. Then I read what Björn Persson heard from Adacore:

versions packaged with GNAT GPL: GPL
versions packaged separate and CVS version: no comment
globally no change in license politics
file headers are correct

Add 2 and 2 and you get 
version from CVS : GMGPL

Depending on what you want to believe, choose from above.

If I were a distribution maintainer, I would do the same thing you
do. If I were interested in an up to date GMGPL version I'd go with
3. and download from CVS. If I were paranoid I'd go with 2. and
couldn't even use 2.4.0 from Sarge for CSS development.

Since there is seemingly not much interest in a 2.4.0 GMGPL version
when the GPL version is at 2.8.x and maybe even such a thing can't
exist (according to 2. above) for me the question simply is: can I
take the GtkAda sources from Sarge and compile them in Etch and roll
my own package (which would then forever stay at 2.4.0)? Probably yes,
I guess or is there any code in 2.4.0 that doesn't compile with gnat
4.1?

The other question would be: would it make more sense to fork an
independent GMGPL GtkAda or join the GNAVI/GWindows project and work
on the GTK+ port of GWindows?