Re: Ada in Debian: most libraries will switch to the pure GPL in Etch

[M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

Georg Bauhaus <bauhaus@futureapps.de> writes:

> On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 10:51 +0000, Dr. Adrian Wrigley wrote:
> 
> > "In order for these freedoms to be real, they must be irrevocable as long
> > as you do nothing wrong; if the developer of the software has the power to
> > revoke the license, without your doing anything to give cause, the
> > software is not free."
> > 
> > It seems pretty clear from the general industry practice in software
> > that GPL is not revocable.  The Ada software in question does not
> > meet this definition of Free Software if the GMGPL licences really
> > have been revoked.
> 
> There is no instance of anything being revoked, AFAICS, if AdaCore
> is entitled to drop the exception from the source they distribute,
> which might feel like something has been revoked. I doubt this
> is an adequate description of the (GM)GPL legal situation.

Come on. They don't want to admit they ever distributed under
GMGPL. Put that together with their theory of "you must always check
with te licensor", than that is nearest you can get to a revocation,
without actually saying so. Of course it's none, but it makes
FUD. It's not good enough for telling third parties that a given lib
is under GMGPL.

> The license text is the GPL in either case, GPL or GPL with the
> special exception.

We know, that you don't want to see the difference. Since you don't
care for it, you'd also not see that anything changed.

Regards -- Markus