Re: Precisely why can't official FSF GNAT maintainers copy bug fixes in GNAT & its GCC-contained runtime en masse from GNAT GPL Community Edition?

[Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>]

antispam@math.uni.wroc.pl writes:

>  Do not be fooled by copyright statements
> in files: copyright exists even if there is no explicit
> statement in files.  And changing copyright notices is
> extra work (and it interrupts normal software workflow)
> so Ada Core used to have wrong copyright notices.
> Robert Dewar (who IIUC has law degree) claimed that
> copyright notices does not matter

He did indeed; but FSF statements on how to put your contribution under
GPL say to put the notice in all files.

>    I guess that they decided to give misleading
> statement about ownership as this does not cause
> serious problems.

What misleading statement?

> Concerning FSF, I think that they know what Ada Core
> is doing and accept that.  I personaly think that
> Ada Core is subverting GPL, but apparently FSF
> either thinks that what Ada Core is doing is right or
> decided to compromise to have a contributor.

Many FSF offerings have similar notices; including C library, C++
library, Bison

> Note that without paying customers Ada Core would
> get out of business and Ada Core thinks that
> it needs licence restrictions to get enough money.

People who are developing multimillion's worth of software can usually
be persuaded to buy support for it.

>            (adapting GNAT to GCC backend is
> a continuous effort that would put significant
> load on volunteer maintainers).

Well, that's certainly true.