gnat-3.10

gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

Robert,

Are we going to see a 3.10 release which can bootstrap itself on HPUX
(3.09 can't) anytime soon?

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us>    Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole

<<Robert,

Are we going to see a 3.10 release which can bootstrap itself on HPUX
(3.09 can't) anytime soon?>>


If you see a public release of GNAT from us, then you know it has been
bootstrapped, i.e. we succeeded in bootstrapping the HPUX 3.09 version.
It's not too surprising that Ronald might not be able to do so without
help from us, there can be tricky points involved in any of these GNAT
bootstraps, which is why most people work with the binary releases.

As for 3.10, we never give any prognosis on schedules for public releases.
A number of our customers are working with prereleases of 3.10 very
successfully, and all we will say is that, as for all GNAT releases, it
will be releases publicly some time in the future.

Of course we cannot guarantee that when it is realeased, Ronald Cole
will be able to bootstrap it on HPUX!

(but we will have bootstrapped it!)

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> If you see a public release of GNAT from us, then you know it has been
> bootstrapped, i.e. we succeeded in bootstrapping the HPUX 3.09 version.
> It's not too surprising that Ronald might not be able to do so without
> help from us, there can be tricky points involved in any of these GNAT
> bootstraps, which is why most people work with the binary releases.

Obviously you personally haven't tried to build gnat-3.09-src.tar.gz
with gnat-3.09-hppa1.1-hp-hpux10.10-bin.tar.gz while following the
directions exactly as given in src/README.UNIX.  Please!  Try it for
yourself and be sure to post your results.  Even with the following
patch provided by your team, the gnat1 component bootstrapped itself,
but it couldn't finish building the Run Time Library:

--- function.c~ Tue Feb 11 13:33:53 1997
+++ function.c  Tue Feb 18 12:32:05 1997
@@ -2963,5 +2963,5 @@
                                          0))
          || (GET_CODE (XEXP (x, 0)) == REG
-             && instantiate_virtual_regs_1 (&XEXP (x, 0), 0, 0)))
+             && instantiate_virtual_regs_1 (&XEXP (x, 0), object, 0)))
        return 1;


> As for 3.10, we never give any prognosis on schedules for public releases.
> A number of our customers are working with prereleases of 3.10 very
> successfully, and all we will say is that, as for all GNAT releases, it
> will be releases publicly some time in the future.
>
> Of course we cannot guarantee that when it is realeased, Ronald Cole
> will be able to bootstrap it on HPUX!
> (but we will have bootstrapped it!)

I hope you'll understand that I'll still question the validity of a
binary release that can't even compile itself without asserting a
fatal compiler error.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us>    Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole says

<<I hope you'll understand that I'll still question the validity of a
binary release that can't even compile itself without asserting a
fatal compiler error.
>>

It is perfectly possible to bootstrap this version of GNAT, if you have
the right versions of everything. So the issue here is not whether this
version can compile itself, of course it can, it is whether Ronald Cole
without help from us can do it? Apparently the answer is no. We provide
our binary releases on an as-is basis, and they have always been bootstrapped.
We do NOT particularly spend a lot of effort ensuring that they can easily
be built without our help from sources, though many people do in fact succeed
in this effort.

Certainly if you are specifically concerned with the "validity" of a binary
release, we would advise you to get it from us. We take no responsibility
for public versions that are around on the net. We try to make sure that
they are in good shape, and correspond to what we distributed originally, but
we cannot guarantee this, and we certainly do NOT guarantee that everyone will
be able to build them from sources.

Ada Core Technologies
Robert B. K. Dewar

Re: gnat-3.10

[Stephen Leake]

Ronald Cole, in a fit of frustration, posted a long script documenting
his attempt to install and bootstrap gnat.

I am one of the "other people" that have successfully retargeted GNAT,
without bugging ACT for free help.

Ronald; this does not belong in this news group. If you are a paying
customer of ACT, use email with them. If you are not a paying customer,
give up! They are generously making the binaries available, with minimal
instructions on how to change them around. If you cannot do what you
want with the material provided, then pay the support cost, and get the
help you need. ACT is not in business to lose money, and the rest of us
would like them to keep providing free binaries!
-- 
- Stephe

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole said

<<Bootstrapped according to the directions you so thoughtfully provide
in your source distribution?  Doubtful, see below.
 >>

Well some people manage with these directions alone, by fiddling around,
other people succeed with advice that we give. We do not provide any help
in building from sources for unsupported users of GNAT. Nevertheless, many
such people succeed in building from sources. And, as I have said before,
any binary version you see from us has been built from sources and
bootstrapped.

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Ronald Cole said
> <<Bootstrapped according to the directions you so thoughtfully provide
> in your source distribution?  Doubtful, see below.
>  >>
> 
> Well some people manage with these directions alone, by fiddling around,
> other people succeed with advice that we give. We do not provide any help
> in building from sources for unsupported users of GNAT. Nevertheless, many
> such people succeed in building from sources. And, as I have said before,
> any binary version you see from us has been built from sources and
> bootstrapped.

Why do your excuses keep changing, Bob?  And why didn't you answer my
question at the end of my post?  I think we all know why...

I've clearly demonstrated that the gnat1 binary in the hpux
distribution is broken... for both your supported *and* unsupported
users.  Plain and simple.  Of course, you're too proud to fix it or to
document the actual "fiddling around" required to bootstrap on this
platform in the src/README.UNIX file because that would be tantamount
to admitting that you might actually have been wrong.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole said

<<Why do your excuses keep changing, Bob?  And why didn't you answer my
question at the end of my post?  I think we all know why...
 
I've clearly demonstrated that the gnat1 binary in the hpux
distribution is broken... for both your supported *and* unsupported
users.  Plain and simple.  Of course, you're too proud to fix it or to
document the actual "fiddling around" required to bootstrap on this
platform in the src/README.UNIX file because that would be tantamount
to admitting that you might actually have been wrong.>>

First, I am Robert, not Bob :-)

Second, we do our best to give accurate directions for building from
sources. Generally we are quite successful, since many knowledgable
people can indeed build successfully, even if they are not our customers.
Of course if they are our customers, then we provide whatever help they
need.

Your difficulties might be incompetence, or something you have overlooked,
or a glitch in the instructions, or a wrong patch somewhere, or a wrong
version of something, but the point is that we are not the slightest bit
interested in spending time to investigate which on a volunteer basis.

I do not know quite what you want me to admit as wrong. All I have every
claimed is that a lot of people have managed to build from sources, and that
we do not care to spend any time helping people build from sources unless
they are our customers, and finally, that all binary versions of GNAT have
been bootstrapped by us (it is actually impossible for us to prepare a binary
version without bootstrapping, since the process of preparing a binary version
is part of the run that does a bootstrap).

The fact that you cannot build from sources would be a concern to us if you
were a customer, but since you are not, it is not. As i said before, we do
our best to make the instructions for building from sources complete and
accurate, but we make absolutely NO guarantees that these instructions are
complete or accurate.

You seen to continue to expect me or us to spend time looking through your
build attempts. Sorry, won't happen if you are not a customer! We are a
commercial company, not a help-Ronald-with-his-problems-at-no-cost
organization!

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole said

<<<<Why do your excuses keep changing, Bob?  And why didn't you answer my
question at the end of my post?  I think we all know why...>>

Just to be clear, I do indeed hope that we all know why, the reason is that
I did not even read through your post, and I do not intend to (and I can't
understand why you expect me to!)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Just to be clear, I do indeed hope that we all know why, the reason is that
> I did not even read through your post, and I do not intend to (and I can't
> understand why you expect me to!)

Robert, you posted your fallacious premises and I proved them wrong in
considerable detail.

You alone chose to wallow in your own abject ignorance because you're
too prejudiced to accept bug reports from people you bully in this
forum, too proud to admit that you made a sub-standard binary
release, and too unconcerned about repeating that mistake.

If all you have to offer in rebuttal is more ad-hominem attacks, please
don't bother: it's not very professional of you.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[CHARLET Arnaud]

Ronald Cole (ronald@ridgenet.net) wrote:
: Robert, you posted your fallacious premises and I proved them wrong in
: considerable detail.

You only proved you weren't able to compile gnat, that's all.
How long will you post your uninteresting and angry messages on this
newsgroup ? Apparently, you don't know what is compilation/gcc/gnat/
Makefiles, maybe you should buy some books on it and read them.

: You alone chose to wallow in your own abject ignorance because you're
: too prejudiced to accept bug reports from people you bully in this
: forum, too proud to admit that you made a sub-standard binary
: release, and too unconcerned about repeating that mistake.

Please stop being angry and stop posting your long and uninteresting
messages, lots of people pay for reading news.

: If all you have to offer in rebuttal is more ad-hominem attacks, please
: don't bother: it's not very professional of you.

Ok kid, I don't want to know if/where you work, but I'm glad I'm not
your boss.

Arno

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

charlet@archimede.enst-bretagne.fr (CHARLET Arnaud) writes:
> You only proved you weren't able to compile gnat, that's all.
> How long will you post your uninteresting and angry messages on this
> newsgroup ? Apparently, you don't know what is compilation/gcc/gnat/
> Makefiles, maybe you should buy some books on it and read them.

Perhaps it is you that should take your own advice.  I proved that
the hpux gnat1 3.09 binary cannot compile sem-case.adb with -O
optimization as the directions say to compile it for HPUX.  I did
this because Robert questioned my ability to follow his directions.

> Ok kid, I don't want to know if/where you work, but I'm glad I'm not
> your boss.

Please brush up on your English.  This sentence of yours makes no sense.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Samuel Tardieu]

Arnaud> Ok kid, I don't want to know if/where you work, but I'm glad
Arnaud> I'm not your boss.

Ronald> Please brush up on your English.  This sentence of yours makes
Ronald> no sense.

When you have nothing more to say about the problem and do not want to 
stop then start criticizing the style...

  Sam
-- 
Samuel Tardieu -- sam@ada.eu.org

Re: gnat-3.10

[Dale Pontius]

In article <m2d8pms722.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>,
        Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
>
> too prejudiced to accept bug reports from people you bully in this

You seem to mistake postings here for official bug reports. Read
ANY documentation on GNAT, and you'll find out that it is provided
as-is. If support is required, and if GNAT is a critical part of
your business, then you should become a paying GNAT user. Then you
will get support.

More importantly, ACT and Cygnus, among others are an absolutely
critical experiment in the software industry. They will answer the
question, "Is there any middleground between students/hobbyists
hacking away at GNU code and commercial software houses like Micro-
soft?" Only a little bit of GNU code has made it to the mainstream,
and it's still pretty well untrusted in the business world, and
it's all because of "support." Even though informal Usenet support
from the author/maintainer is usually better than any company,
business demands a business. ACT/Cygnus/etc are an important bridge
that retains free software, yet makes it acceptable to business.

You call ACT money-grubbing because they're not giving you free
support. I call them downright generous because I have access to
their software for free, even if it is unsupported.

Dale Pontius
(NOT speaking for IBM)

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

pontius@btv.vnet.ibm.com (Dale Pontius) writes:
> You seem to mistake postings here for official bug reports. Read
> ANY documentation on GNAT, and you'll find out that it is provided
> as-is. If support is required, and if GNAT is a critical part of
> your business, then you should become a paying GNAT user. Then you
> will get support.

Please learn to follow a thread.  I posted early on that I reported
this bug several months ago and got back a patch from Richard Kenner
but that it didn't seem to do the trick.

> You call ACT money-grubbing because they're not giving you free
> support. I call them downright generous because I have access to
> their software for free, even if it is unsupported.

I call them money-grubbing because Robert is constantly bringing it
up.  "I'll tell you it's broken it if you pay me" probably isn't such
a hot marketing strategy...  Nowhere did I say I needed it fixed now;
but, it will need to be fixed if ACT is ever to have customers on the
pa-risc platform.

In fact, it may already be fixed; but I'm guessing it isn't.  My
original post only attempted to asked if ACT will have time to address
it for the 3.10 release, because they clearly didn't for the 3.09
release.

Robert then replied that there was nothing wrong with the 3.09 release
and proceeded to spew venom at me; forcing me to demonstrate that, yes
indeed, there is something wrong with the 3.09 release.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Andrew Lynch]

Ronald Cole wrote:
> pontius@btv.vnet.ibm.com (Dale Pontius) writes:
[...]
> > You call ACT money-grubbing because they're not giving you free
> > support. I call them downright generous because I have access to
> > their software for free, even if it is unsupported.
> 
> I call them money-grubbing because Robert is constantly bringing it
> up.  "I'll tell you it's broken it if you pay me" probably isn't such
> a hot marketing strategy...

Indeed it is not. A much better marketing strategy would be:
1) "I'll give you the product if you pay me"
2) "I'll tell you it's broken if you pay me some more"
3) "I'll fix what is broken if you pay me even more"
4) "I'll actually let you have the fixed version if you pay me..."

Many software and hardware companies run successfully like this.
I've been told that some places (maybe MS or Compaq?) even ask you
to pay for _sending_ them bug reports, let alone somebody actually
dealing with the bug.

I see being able to get a free version of GNAT as a privilege, not a
right. If GNAT does not work for me, then tough shit. I can either
have a look at the sources and try to fix it myself, or I can *pay*
ACT to make me a version that works for me, or I can wait for the
changes that somebody else *paid* ACT to make become available in a
public release.
For my personal use of GNAT I usually go with the third option. If
you want to use GNAT in your company I would suggest you go with
option two and carry on these arguments via email.

Andrew.
(Beware of sarcasm)

Maybe ACT could fix every problem free of charge, but for how long?
At some point all ACT employees will have starved to death and then
where will you send your bug reports..?

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

Andrew Lynch <lynch@cci.de> writes:
> I see being able to get a free version of GNAT as a privilege, not a
> right. If GNAT does not work for me, then tough shit.

I am under the impression GNAT is under the GPL because it was
developed with government money and uses the gcc backend.  The "tough
shit" part really isn't true because source is made available.

> I can either have a look at the sources and try to fix it myself, or
> I can *pay* ACT to make me a version that works for me, or I can
> wait for the changes that somebody else *paid* ACT to make become
> available in a public release.

The latter is what I'm doing since Robert has convinced me that I
probably should charge him for any fixes I make to his product.  And
since it'll be a cold day in hell when that happens, I won't be able
to distribute fixed versions.  It looks like quite a bit of work to
make the pa-risc more robust with Ada.  It also seems like no one is
willing to pay the high cost to fix it.  Of course, I'm not screwing
around with any of the gcc-2.8 pre-releases so I may be completely
off-base here, but no one has provided any information to indicate
that it will change in this area.

I would be very willing to pay for support once I saw that the product
had matured on that platform.  Robert has yet to convince me with a
factual argument that GNAT for the pa-risc has.

> For my personal use of GNAT I usually go with the third option. If
> you want to use GNAT in your company I would suggest you go with
> option two and carry on these arguments via email.

No client of mine would be willing to pay what it would cost to make
GNAT more robust on the pa-risc platform.

> Maybe ACT could fix every problem free of charge, but for how long?
> At some point all ACT employees will have starved to death and then
> where will you send your bug reports..?

The Hacker Ethic that spawned the GNU Manifesto has both feet in the
coffin.  I contributed a considerable amount and time and effort to
develop COFF support for and get it into g++-1.32 almost a decade ago.
It was the right thing to do and I don't regret not profiting from it
at all.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Dale Pontius]

In article <m2yb88sqc2.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>,
        Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
>
> Please learn to follow a thread.  I posted early on that I reported
> this bug several months ago and got back a patch from Richard Kenner
> but that it didn't seem to do the trick.
>
Well sorry about that, but our newsserver has already purged the
beginning of this whole thing. But that doesn't change the facts
of the whole support issue. Is Richard Kenner from ACT? If so,
and you did get a patch from him, then you got a freebie.

As someone else said, some folks charge to even make a bug report.

Dale Pontius
(NOT speaking for IBM)

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Dale says

<<More importantly, ACT and Cygnus, among others are an absolutely
critical experiment in the software industry. They will answer the
question, "Is there any middleground between students/hobbyists
hacking away at GNU code and commercial software houses like Micro-
soft?" Only a little bit of GNU code has made it to the mainstream,
and it's still pretty well untrusted in the business world, and
it's all because of "support." Even though informal Usenet support
from the author/maintainer is usually better than any company,
business demands a business>>

The reason that business demands a business is that they need to be sure
they have support when they need it, and that they get to decide when the
need for support arises. It is interesting that more and more of our support
is not related to bugs in GNAT, but rather, as people build more complex
applications using GNAT, and using the more complex features of Ada 95,
with giving people assistance in the use of GNAT. Also a lot of our
business relates to special purpose needs.

Yes, sometimes informal Usenet support can be quite effective, but on the
other hand, it can sometimes be highly unreliable. In particular, people
giving free support can quite reasonably take the attitude that you should
spend a lot of your time creating an absolutely clear example, which can be
a very time consuing excercise.

We quite often deal with large programs which don't seem to work at some 
particular point, and we dig around. Sometimes the digging shows up a GNAT
bug, sometimes a bug in the customer code, sometimes just a misunderstanding.
This digging can of course be very time consuming.

Also, I think the informal model works best when you have a program that is
of a level that one person can maintain it as a spare time hobby. Free software
has faired quite well, even without formal support in this kind of situation.

However, this model does not work well for large complex pieces of software,
like GCC, or GNAT, where you need a team of people working full time. In such
cases, the Cygnus or ACT model seems more workable (a similar situation is
true with Linux/GNU where more than one company has sprung up to support
this system.

Re: gnat-3.10

[Richard Kenner]

In article <dewar.866559209@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>Yes, sometimes informal Usenet support can be quite effective, but on the
>other hand, it can sometimes be highly unreliable. In particular, people
>giving free support can quite reasonably take the attitude that you should
>spend a lot of your time creating an absolutely clear example, which can be
>a very time consuing excercise.

Moreover, the emphasis in such support is to improve the product, not
solve the user's problem.  So if a report of a bug is made and the bug
has already been fixed in the development sources, the person is
either told that or does not receive a response since their bug report
is no longer "useful".  But if they were a customer of a commercial
maintainer of the software, they would have to receive a patch unless
it was possible to make that new version available to them.

Re: gnat-3.10

[Arthur Schwarz]

I love this stuff. Makes me long for Kindergarten. 

I'm going to tell my wife that this is more interesting
than 'Soaps', evening or daytime. A serial in the making.
Real life in the raw. Wasted bandwidth.

Go get'em (generic) guys.

arthur schwarz
aschwarz@acm.org
schwarza@gdls.com

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> First, I am Robert, not Bob :-)

Sorry, you are correct.  You have no slack.

> Second, we do our best to give accurate directions for building from
> sources. Generally we are quite successful, since many knowledgable
> people can indeed build successfully, even if they are not our customers.
> Of course if they are our customers, then we provide whatever help they
> need.

That was your best?  Ok.  I'll take your word for it.

> Your difficulties might be incompetence, or something you have overlooked,
> or a glitch in the instructions, or a wrong patch somewhere, or a wrong
> version of something, but the point is that we are not the slightest bit
> interested in spending time to investigate which on a volunteer basis.

Might be?  I could have sworn you said it was without doubt.  Please
check your ego at the door, Robert.

> I do not know quite what you want me to admit as wrong. All I have every
> claimed is that a lot of people have managed to build from sources, and that
> we do not care to spend any time helping people build from sources unless
> they are our customers, and finally, that all binary versions of GNAT have
> been bootstrapped by us (it is actually impossible for us to prepare a binary
> version without bootstrapping, since the process of preparing a binary version
> is part of the run that does a bootstrap).

I have successfully built from sources up to 3.07.  After 3.07, some
patches were introduced that apparently broke -O optimization for the
pa-risc platform (-O2 optimization has been broken, and documented as
such, since at least 2.04).  I should probably tell you that compiling
from sources with -g only won't bootstrap either.  In 3.09, the binary
release end-user is forced to examine the object code to see whether
one gets correctly compiled code with -O or with -g.  You are
apparently very proud of this result.

> The fact that you cannot build from sources would be a concern to us if you
> were a customer, but since you are not, it is not. As i said before, we do
> our best to make the instructions for building from sources complete and
> accurate, but we make absolutely NO guarantees that these instructions are
> complete or accurate.

I see.  Apparently, you have no customers on the hpux platform as of
the 3.09 binary release.

> You seen to continue to expect me or us to spend time looking through your
> build attempts. Sorry, won't happen if you are not a customer! We are a
> commercial company, not a help-Ronald-with-his-problems-at-no-cost
> organization!

My post was a bug report, and a suggestion that perhaps you not
distribute binaries with broken optimizers for the 3.10 release as you
did with the 3.09 release.  Apparently (being money-grubbers), ACT
cannot assure quality, but only ensure the lack thereof in some of
it's binary releases.  I accept your plea of ignorance in this regard.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Building gnat-3.10 from source (was: gnat-3.10)

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <m2ena2s7jq.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>, Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>> First, I am Robert, not Bob :-)
> 
> Sorry, you are correct.  You have no slack.

And may we call you Ron-Ron, or some other name you do not choose ?

> Might be?  I could have sworn you said it was without doubt.  Please
> check your ego at the door, Robert.

My news access program seems to have mistakenly transported me to
comp.os.wars.mine-is-better-than-yours or some other place away from
the usually polite comp.lang.ada.

> My post was a bug report, and a suggestion that perhaps you not
> distribute binaries with broken optimizers for the 3.10 release as you
> did with the 3.09 release.  Apparently (being money-grubbers), ACT
> cannot assure quality, but only ensure the lack thereof in some of
> it's binary releases.  I accept your plea of ignorance in this regard.

There is an established channel which ACT has set up for bug reports.
For that matter, there is a separate Chat list which ACT maintains
for discussion of GNAT issues among non-supported customers.

Either of those would be more appropriate for one of these DID-SO,
DID-NOT "discussions".  Although it is quite possible that ACT has
made a mistake, in the case of free software for which the source is
available the prowess of the person who claims an error would fully
demonstrated by pointing out the lines which cause the error.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: Building gnat-3.10 from source (was: gnat-3.10)

[Ronald Cole]

kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen) writes:
> My news access program seems to have mistakenly transported me to
> comp.os.wars.mine-is-better-than-yours or some other place away from
> the usually polite comp.lang.ada.

Please follow the thread from it's inception and tell us who it was
who replied to my second post with personal attacks about my inability
to build the release from source because "the issue here is not
whether this version can compile itself, of course it can..."  Why, it
was Robert Dewar!  I just attempted to demonstrate that he was
sorely mistaken.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole saysw

<<I see.  Apparently, you have no customers on the hpux platform as of
the 3.09 binary release.
 
> You seen to continue to expect me or us to spend time looking through your
> build attempts. Sorry, won't happen if you are not a customer! We are a
> commercial company, not a help-Ronald-with-his-problems-at-no-cost
> organization!
 
My post was a bug report, and a suggestion that perhaps you not
distribute binaries with broken optimizers for the 3.10 release as you
did with the 3.09 release.  Apparently (being money-grubbers), ACT
cannot assure quality, but only ensure the lack thereof in some of
it's binary releases.  I accept your plea of ignorance in this regard.
>>


We have a number of large customers on HPUX. They were using 3.09 when it
was the current release, most of them have by now switched to 3.10 which is
the current product release. As usual, this will be released publicly in
the future. I must say that the logic that says "I, Ronald Cole, have failed
in attempting to build from sources, therefore no other customers are using
this successfully", entirely elludes me.

If your definition of money-grubber is someone who refuses to provide you
free help and assistance, yes, I am afraid that we fall into this category.
I imagine your local supermarket also is guilty.

As for ignorance. Yes, I am ignorant of your specific problem, because we
have not looked at it. I simply deleted your long post. If indeed you think
of it as a bug report, then bug reports get submitted to report@gnat.com.
Posting them to CLA will not help get them fixed!

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> We have a number of large customers on HPUX. They were using 3.09 when it
> was the current release, most of them have by now switched to 3.10 which is
> the current product release. As usual, this will be released publicly in
> the future. I must say that the logic that says "I, Ronald Cole, have failed
> in attempting to build from sources, therefore no other customers are using
> this successfully", entirely elludes me.

That's not what I said at all, Robert.

> As for ignorance. Yes, I am ignorant of your specific problem, because we
> have not looked at it. I simply deleted your long post. If indeed you think
> of it as a bug report, then bug reports get submitted to report@gnat.com.
> Posting them to CLA will not help get them fixed!

You can save yourself a lot of grief here, Robert, by reading what I
wrote and by not putting words into my mouth.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> We have a number of large customers on HPUX. They were using 3.09 when it
> was the current release, most of them have by now switched to 3.10 which is
> the current product release. As usual, this will be released publicly in
> the future.

GNAT is based on GCC, right?  What section of the GPL are you relying
on to justify making binary releases of modified GPL software to your
paying clients and refusing to make the source code available to the
public at the same time?  Under Section 3 of the GPL, it seems clear
that once you distribute an object code work based on a GPL'd program,
you must release the source code concurrently.

And why hasn't the text of the GPL been included in your previous
source distributions?

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole said

<<dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> We have a number of large customers on HPUX. They were using 3.09 when it
> was the current release, most of them have by now switched to 3.10 which is
> the current product release. As usual, this will be released publicly in
> the future.

GNAT is based on GCC, right?  What section of the GPL are you relying
on to justify making binary releases of modified GPL software to your
paying clients and refusing to make the source code available to the
public at the same time?  Under Section 3 of the GPL, it seems clear
that once you distribute an object code work based on a GPL'd program,
you must release the source code concurrently.

And why hasn't the text of the GPL been included in your previous
source distributions?

--
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B
>>



Some confusions here. First there is no requirement that we release anything
at all to the public. Ronald you may want to look up the GPL yourself, it
has no such requirment at all. 

The requirement is that we make available sources on request to anyone
to whom we make objects available. Also there is no requirement to "release"
the source code, just to make it available at a reasonable copying charge.
(as I say, Ronald, you should carefully read the GPL, since you seem to have
some misconceptions about it).

However, we do in fact release binary versions, though we are not required to
do so, and in accordance with the GPL, we do indeed release sources for these
binary versions.

As to file COPYING being missing, I will investigate, for convenience it
should be in the release, although you can always get a copy as noted in
the headers.

We are strong supporters of the GPL, and carefully follow it, and insist that
all users of GNAT also follow it (this in practice only restricts people making
modificatoins to the compiler, since the runtime is released under a modified
GPL that places almost no restrictins in practice on its use).

We often find that people have strange misconceptions about the GPL, in
particular they think that you are required to distribute stuff, you are
not! and that you are required to distribute sources free, you are not.

The distinction is important, we like people to know that we take the extra
effort to make versions of GNAT public not because we have to, but because
we choose to, since we think it is valuable to the Ada community.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Spam Hater]

> Robert Dewar wrote:
> We often find that people have strange misconceptions
> about the GPL, ...

First, I am NOT trying to defend R. Cole's continuing hogwash.  ACT
is, IMHO, fully compliant with the GPL, and the "special exception"
in the headers of all their RTS files is very reasonable.

HOWEVER, several people have said on Usenet or in direct e-mail 
that I can use GPL'd source code in my project and still retain 
full rights (actually my employer's rights) on the rest of the code. 

If this were true, there would be no need for GNAT's 
"special exception."

Note that I am NOT talking about the GNU "Library" License.  Here is
the relevant paragraph of the GPL:

  2.b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
    whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
    part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
    parties under the terms of this License.

So, if any part of my program contains any part (or derivation of)
their program, I have two choices:
1. Distribute my program "as a whole" under the terms of the GPL
2. Don't distribute my program.

(If you play with my ball, you play by my rules.)

David Weller's "Ada Community License" and GNAT's "special exception"
are very welcome relief from the above restriction.

I am sympathetic to the goals of the Free Software Foundation, but I
think that--by trying too hard to coerce other people to make 
software "free"--the above paragraph is counter-productive to those 
goals.  It forces me to re-invent things just so my employers can 
say they own them.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

[I've changed the newsgroup from gnu.gcc, which doesn't exist, to 
gnu.misc.discuss, which is the proper newsgroup to discuss the GPL.]

In article <33B014E3.3343@no.such.com> Spam Hater <no.such.user@no.such.com> writes:
>HOWEVER, several people have said on Usenet or in direct e-mail 
>that I can use GPL'd source code in my project and still retain 
>full rights (actually my employer's rights) on the rest of the code. 

Since you are getting into what is probably the trickiest part of
the GPL, we need to be very precise here.

Here I'm assuming "use GPL'd source code" means to create a single
work that contains both your code and GPL code, not something like
using a GPL'd tool such as emacs or gcc to compile you program.

In that case, you can indeed do as the people suggested: there is no
problem in *creating* such a work, to which both the GPL applies and
to which you retain full rights to your own code.

>So, if any part of my program contains any part (or derivation of)
>their program, I have two choices:
>1. Distribute my program "as a whole" under the terms of the GPL
>2. Don't distribute my program.

That's correct and exactly the status of the resulting work.  If you
want to continue to view your code as proprietary, then you have two
different copyright terms for pieces of the code and the only way to
satisfy both is not to distribute the work at all.

>(If you play with my ball, you play by my rules.)
>
>I am sympathetic to the goals of the Free Software Foundation, but I
>think that--by trying too hard to coerce other people to make 
>software "free"--the above paragraph is counter-productive to those 
>goals.  It forces me to re-invent things just so my employers can 
>say they own them.

That may be, but the whole point is that people have spent
considerable amount of time, usually without any compensation, to
create the GPL'd code in question.  They are doing this because they
want to help the public in general and don't want their work to be
used to help somebody else do something that is against their
philosophy.  This does not seem particularly unreasonable to me.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

Richard Kenner wrote:
> 
> [I've changed the newsgroup from gnu.gcc, which doesn't exist, to
> gnu.misc.discuss, which is the proper newsgroup to discuss the GPL.]
> 
> In article <33B014E3.3343@no.such.com> Wes Groleau <no.such.user@no.such.com> wrote (slightly re-worded for clarity):
> >HOWEVER, several people have said on Usenet or in direct e-mail
> >that I can re-use GPL'd source code as part of my program and 
> >still retain full rights (actually my employer's rights) on the
> >rest of the code.
> 
> ..... you can indeed do as the people suggested: there is no
> problem in *creating* such a work, to which both the GPL applies and
> to which you retain full rights to your own code.
> 
> >So, if any part of my program contains any part (or derivation of)
> >their program, I have two choices:
> >1. Distribute my program "as a whole" under the terms of the GPL
> >2. Don't distribute my program.
> 
> That's correct and exactly the status of the resulting work.  If you
> [must] continue to view [the] code as proprietary, then you have two
> different copyright terms for pieces of the code and the only way to
> satisfy both is not to distribute the work at all.

However, that is not what people have been telling me.  Several times
I have been reprimanded for saying I cannot incorporate a particular
bit of code due to the GPL.

> >I am sympathetic to the goals of the Free Software Foundation, but I
> >think that--by trying too hard to coerce other people to make
> >software "free"--the above paragraph is counter-productive to those
> >goals.  It forces me to re-invent things just so my employers can
> >say they own them.
> 
> That may be, but the whole point is that people have spent
> considerable amount of time, usually without any compensation, to
> create the GPL'd code in question.  They are doing this because they
> want to help the public in general and don't want their work to be
> used to help somebody else do something that is against their
> philosophy.  This does not seem particularly unreasonable to me.

It does not seem unreasonable to me either.  But David Weller's
approach, and the GNAT approach are far more helpful in that they
allow me to actually use the code, not just look at it.  Call me
(adjective) if you want for cooperating with software hoarders,
but I tilt at bigger windmills. 

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Wes Groleau <no.such.user@no.such.com> writes:

  >> >So, if any part of my program contains any part (or derivation of)
  >> >their program, I have two choices:
  >> >1. Distribute my program "as a whole" under the terms of the GPL
  >> >2. Don't distribute my program.

  >> That's correct and exactly the status of the resulting work.

  wg> However, that is not what people have been telling me.  Several times
  wg> I have been reprimanded for saying I cannot incorporate a particular
  wg> bit of code due to the GPL.

Without knowing the details of what you said and the replies you
received it's impossible to comment directly.

However, we all know that there are plenty of not-so-knowledgeable
people using the 'Net who think (or at least like to pretend) that they
are otherwise :).

That being said, there are a few things which could change the basic
status outlined above.  For example, if the code was under the LGPL
instead of the GPL, there're whole new avenues opened to you.

Also, if you weren't careful in describing exactly how you wanted to
utilize the GPL'd code, or what you meant by "contains", above, some
might have misinterpreted it.

Although the fundamental case is stated pretty clearly in this thread, I
think, if you still aren't sure exactly how the GPL applies to your
situation you can post explicit details of what you want to do, or you
could email RMS directly and ask him what he thinks.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Paul D. Smith <psmith@baynetworks.com>         Network Management Development
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     These are my opinions--Bay Networks takes no responsibility for them.

Re: gnat-3.10

[Dale Stanbrough]

Richard Kenner writes:

">So, if any part of my program contains any part (or derivation of)
 >their program, I have two choices:
 >1. Distribute my program "as a whole" under the terms of the GPL
 >2. Don't distribute my program.
 
 That's correct and exactly the status of the resulting work.  If you
 want to continue to view your code as proprietary, then you have two
 different copyright terms for pieces of the code and the only way to
 satisfy both is not to distribute the work at all."


...and there I think is a major issue that needs explaining (to me at
least!).
What does "contains" mean? If I write a GUI front end for Gnat, does that
constitute containment? I could distributed it separately, and have it just
make system calls to Gnat? What about a program that is linked to some of the
GNAT parser routines? What about a system that dynamically loads Gnat in as
a 
DLL? Is the calling convention what determines the "contains" relationship?


Dale ?:-/

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Dale asks

<<...and there I think is a major issue that needs explaining (to me at
least!).
What does "contains" mean? If I write a GUI front end for Gnat, does that
constitute containment? I could distributed it separately, and have it just
make system calls to Gnat? What about a program that is linked to some of the
GNAT parser routines? What about a system that dynamically loads Gnat in as
a
DLL? Is the calling convention what determines the "contains" relationship?
>>

First of all you need to look at the GPL itself, not some summary of it
on CLA, and interpet the language there. Generally, if two parts of the
same system are separate Unix processes, with relatively thin interfaces,
the requirements will be met. Linking to some parser routines is obviously
past the line and is not allowed, dynamically loading GNAT will generally
be fine, writing a GUI will certainly be fine.

As is the case with any legal document, you have to look at the contract
terms, and look at the specific case to make sure that you are not violating
the contract. If you are in doubt, you can consult your own lawyer, or you
can ask the copyright holder, who may or may not enlighten you (the holder
of the copyright is under no obligation to give you advance notice of what
might or might not violate the copyright, and may well not be willing to
give you such advance notice if it is a dubious case).

As an example of a dubious case, trying to make a compiler by having the
GNAT front end write a file containing the tree, and a separate proprietary
backend reading the tree is probably dubious, and Richard Stallman, as
representative of the copyright holder, has been unwilling to give an
opinion as to whether this does or does not violate the conditions of the
GPL (he would of course show more interest in the subject if anyone
actually did this!)

On the other hand, a GUI front end for GNAT, such as the many ones that
have already been created, seems absolutely fine for everyone, although
so far, most of these GUI's have themselves been free software, which is
certainly to be encouraged. 

How about a GUI for GDB? Well that's getting closer to the line, perhaps
it is past it, because then the GUI becomes a fundamental part of the
debugger, whereas a GUI for GNAT is not a fundamental part of the compiler
at least not usually.

If all this makes people a bit nervous about what is and what is not allowed
in attempts to use GPL'ed stuff as part of proprietary software, do not
expect us or Richard Stallman to get too upset! If it encourages the
production of more freely available software for the Ada community, that is a good thing. An example
of this happening is the vendor who will be creating a new Ada 95
cross compiler using the GNAT front end and their own previously
proprietary backend, which in its new incarnation will join the
ranks of free software products.

Two particular notes on all this with respect to GNAT.

First, the ASIS interface has been specially designed so that it is suitable
for generating third party products that need not be covered by the GPL. One
of the functions we see for ASIS is providing this kind of insulation.

Second, none of this discussion ever applies to programs *generated* by
GNAT, since all units in question there are covered not by the GPL, but
by the modified GPL that is specifically designed to allow such programs
to be used without imposing GPL distribution requirements.

It only applies to programs that actually want to use some of our
copyrighted code directly.

Re: gnat-3.10

[James Rogers]

Just a slight detour from the current thread of this subject,
when will gnat-3.10 be generally available to the public on for
free?  How about gnat-4.0?

-- 
Jim Rogers
*************************************************************
Team Ada

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

James Rogers asks

<<Just a slight detour from the current thread of this subject,
when will gnat-3.10 be generally available to the public on for
free?  How about gnat-4.0?
>>

For GNAT 3.10, we never announce schedules for the public releases, and
we have no definite plans for the 3.10 release. Development is continuing
very rapidly, and basically we wait till there is a nice window of
opportunity in terms of this development cycle till we make the public
release. At this stahge, we will probably wait till the gdb support is
complete, since this seems to be going very well.

The designation 4.0x is reserved for the officially validated version.
TO be using an officially validated version, you must have a contractual
relationship with the holder of the validation certificate, or of courrse
you could do the validation yourself. Thus 4.0 will only be available
to supported customers. It is still free software, but transitive
distribution does not make much sense in this formal case, since the
recipient of a further distribution would NOT be using a formally
validated compiler, according to DoD rules.

If all you are interested in is getting a compiler that is technically
equivalent to the validated compiler, then you have nothing to worry
about. We will release public versions that are indeed equivalent to
the validated versions, and which, for the targets for which we are
validated (13 of them at this stage), will pass all the validation tests.

Indeed we hope that version 3.10 will meet this goal (we run the entire
ACVC suite every night on several different machines).

Robert B.K. Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: gnat-3.10

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5os9i9$o32$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> Dale Stanbrough <dale@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> writes:
>...and there I think is a major issue that needs explaining (to me at
>least!).
>What does "contains" mean? If I write a GUI front end for Gnat, does that
>constitute containment? I could distributed it separately, and have it just
>make system calls to Gnat? What about a program that is linked to some of the
>GNAT parser routines? What about a system that dynamically loads Gnat in as
>a DLL? Is the calling convention what determines the "contains" relationship?

This is indeed a somewhat vague area and, to some extent, purposely so.
The line is more likely to be drawn in terms of the extent to which the
parts work together and are both necessary to accomplish a goal than
in terms of the technical mechanisms used to make the calls between
the pieces.

For example, if somebody made a GUI for GNAT that relied only on its
external specifications and didn't take advantage of anything
particular about GNAT's internal structure, it probably would not be
considered a derived work unless it actually linked in GNAT code.

If you're thinking of doing something "on the fringe" here, you do indeed
have to ask the copyright holder about it.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <33B13BF6.79C7@no.such.com> Wes Groleau <no.such.user@no.such.com> writes:
>However, that is not what people have been telling me.  Several times
>I have been reprimanded for saying I cannot incorporate a particular
>bit of code due to the GPL.

That may be correct.  It depends what you plan *to do* with the work
in question.  There's no restriction on actually creating derived work
(they're wrong about that), but the resulting work cannot be
distributed to anybody.  Since that's likely what the intent was,
they are correct in that case.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Wes says

<<However, that is not what people have been telling me.  Several times
I have been reprimanded for saying I cannot incorporate a particular
bit of code due to the GPL.
>>

Huh? This is like saying you have been reprimanded for refusing to make
an illicit copy of proprietary software. Whoever is doing the reprimanding
here is either incompetent, or does not mind if their company violates
copyrights. What possible misconception would lead this reprimander to
be so free in assuming you should violate copyright restrictions. Pretty odd!

<<It does not seem unreasonable to me either.  But David Weller's
approach, and the GNAT approach are far more helpful in that they
allow me to actually use the code, not just look at it.  Call me
(adjective) if you want for cooperating with software hoarders,
but I tilt at bigger windmills.
>>

GNAT is not special here, other gcc compilers take the same viewpoint, and
for example the g++ library has a similar statement (not quite identical,
since we added language to specifically allow generic instantiations --
probably templates give rise to the same issue in the C case, but we wanted
things to be quite clear in the GNAT case).

Note however that this *only* applies to the runtime of GNAT, it does NOT
apply to GNAT units in the compiler. The example I gave was a tool that
needed to use the GNAT scanner, it would be a violation of copyright to
build and distribute such a tool (incorporating scn.adb) without following
the GPL rules.

So if you are simply using GNAT to generate programs, everything is fine, a
and the GPL does not stand in your way.

If you want to build and distribute tools that make use of parts of the
GNAT compiler itself that are covered by the normal GPL, you must abide
by the restrictions.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

> <<However, that is not what people have been telling me.  Several 
> times I have been reprimanded for saying I cannot incorporate a 
> particular bit of code due to the GPL.
> 
> Huh? This is like saying you have been reprimanded for refusing to 
> make an illicit copy of proprietary software. Whoever is doing the 
> reprimanding here is either incompetent, or does not mind if their 
> company violates copyrights. What possible misconception ....
> Pretty odd!

I was referring to the many times people (via Usenet or e-mail) have 
told me I know nothing about the GPL after I put GPL's paragraph 2.b
into my own words.

A recent example (this was PRIOR to the c.l.a thread on stack traces)
was the suggestion that I use code from gdb to get a stack trace when
detecting an error.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Samuel Mize]

[quotations reformatted for line length]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> Wes says
> 
> <<However, that is not what people have been telling me.
>  Several times I have been reprimanded for saying I cannot
>  incorporate a particular bit of code due to the GPL.
> >>
> 
> Huh? This is like saying you have been reprimanded for refusing to
> make an illicit copy of proprietary software. Whoever is doing the
> reprimanding here is either incompetent, or does not mind if their
> company violates copyrights.

I believe that he's saying that people on the net have reprimanded
him (carped at him) for saying the GLP doesn't allow him to
incorporate GPL'd source code.  "Of course you can incorporate it,"
they say, "you just have to follow the rules about distributing it."

However, his company refuses to distribute the sources for their
product.  So, since he can't distribute it appropriately, he says
he can't incorporate it.

But some people go into a religious frenzy if you say you "can't"
incorporate GPL'd code into your product.  You CAN, they say, but
your company CHOOSES not to because of the distribution requirement.

However, company decisions are constraints on what we engineers
can do.  I can't change the brand of computer we use; I can't
write Lisp or Forth code for our systems; I can't incorporate
GPL'd code. At least, I can't do so and still be doing the job
they're paying me to do.

For that matter, you CAN make an illicit copy of proprietary
software, too, and some people claim to be striking a blow for
intellectual freedom by using a stolen copy of Excel.  I disagree.

Sam Mize

--
-- Samuel Mize    (817) 619-8622    smize@link.com    "Team Ada"
-- Hughes Training Inc.  PO Box 6171 m/s 400, Arlington TX 76005

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG]

Samuel Mize <smize@link.com> writes:

> However, his company refuses to distribute the sources for their
> product.  So, since he can't distribute it appropriately, he says
> he can't incorporate it.

> But some people go into a religious frenzy if you say you "can't"
> incorporate GPL'd code into your product.  You CAN, they say, but
> your company CHOOSES not to because of the distribution requirement.

That's the absolutely correct response.

People tend to box themselves in, and then say "I can't do X" or "I
must do X".  But when the restriction is only there because of a prior
choice to box themselves in, they should not say "can't" or "must" in
these contexts.  They should say "I chose box A, and X, which comes
along with A."  

People forget that, in general, they *chosse* who to work for--they
*choose* to have children--they *choose* to drive a car, etc.  

Nearly every time I hear someone say "can't" or "must" they are
talking about something which they have actually chosen, and want to
avoid (internal or external) criticism about their choice.

Thomas

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

> > However, his company refuses to distribute the sources for their
> > product.  So, since he can't distribute it appropriately, he says
> > he can't incorporate it.

> Nearly every time I hear someone say "can't" or "must" they are
> talking about something which they have actually chosen, and want to
> avoid (internal or external) criticism about their choice.

It makes no difference whether I say "I choose not" or "I can't"
with the implication "not if I keep this job"  The issues here are:

1. I was trying to meet a set of requirements.  One of those
   requirements was incompatible with the GPL.  Saying "yes you can"
   is the same as saying "no that's not a requirement." and doesn't
   help me meet that requirement.
2. Saying "no the GPL doesn't say that" is even less helpful, because
   it's not true.
3. Saying, "you're not really looking for advice, you're making
   excuses for not getting the job done..." is the most peculiar
   response of all.  _If_ I make excuses, I make them to my boss,
   not to comp.lang.ada !!!!

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Wes says

<<1. I was trying to meet a set of requirements.  One of those
   requirements was incompatible with the GPL.  Saying "yes you can"
   is the same as saying "no that's not a requirement." and doesn't
   help me meet that requirement.
>>

This is still an odd way of saying things ("incompatible with the GPL")

The proper viewpoint is the following.

I am writing a program
I could simplify my job if I could use this code
However, this code is copyrighted
I do not have permission to copy the code
Therefore I cannot use it


The fact that the code is GPL'ed is entirely irrelevant to this scenario.
As with any copyrighted code, if you want to use it in a given context,
you have to ask permission of the copyright holder. If the copyright
holder is FSF or Microsoft, the answer may well be no, the copyright
holder is under no obligation to let you use their copyrighted code.

If the GPL allows you do do something with a particular copy of some
code, fine, but if it does not, then you are in the same boat as you
would be with any copyrighted code. You need to go to the copyright
holder and see if you can get their permission for your intended use.

Note that the holder of the copyright may always give you MORE permission
than the GPL allows, the GPL gives certain permissions to everyone other
than the copyright holder. But the holder can do anything they like.

Now it is true in practice that if the holder is FSF, they are pretty
unlikely to give you permission for a usage that is inconsistent with
the GPL, but who knows there could be some circumstances in which it
would seem appropriate (I think allowing Wes to use it in proprietary
software that his company intends to hoard is likely NOT one of these
circumstances :-)

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[user]

In article <dewar.867380006@merv>, Robert Dewar wrote:
>This is still an odd way of saying things ("incompatible with the GPL")
>
>The proper viewpoint is the following.
>
>I am writing a program
>I could simplify my job if I could use this code
>However, this code is copyrighted
>I do not have permission to copy the code
>Therefore I cannot use it
>
>
Seems pretty simple when expressed that way.  I think an obstacle to 
adopting this view point is that the GPL'd code seems to be right in
your face mocking you!  Nobody seems to have the same problem  with
say Windows95 source code that they'll never see anyway.  

Isaac

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

user@yellow says

<<Seems pretty simple when expressed that way.  I think an obstacle to
adopting this view point is that the GPL'd code seems to be right in
your face mocking you!  Nobody seems to have the same problem  with
say Windows95 source code that they'll never see anyway.
>>

If the GPL code seems to "mock" you in this case, it can only be because
you do not understand the intention or the legal details of the GPL.
Whenever you contemplate making use of someone else's code in your own,
it is your responsibility to understand the legal requirements for doing
this without violating copyright.

It is certainly true that a lot of the perceived difficulties with the
GPL come from misunderstandings, which is why this thread is useful
in sorting out some of these misunderstandings.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[user]

In article <dewar.867587841@merv>, Robert Dewar wrote:
>If the GPL code seems to "mock" you in this case, it can only be because
>you do not understand the intention or the legal details of the GPL.
>Whenever you contemplate making use of someone else's code in your own,
>it is your responsibility to understand the legal requirements for doing
>this without violating copyright.
>
>It is certainly true that a lot of the perceived difficulties with the
>GPL come from misunderstandings, which is why this thread is useful
>in sorting out some of these misunderstandings.
>
I agree and my use of the word "mock" was merely meant to point out that
the easy availability of the source code is what causes people to overlook 
the normally obvious legal implications of using someone else's code.  

Isaac

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Isaac says

<<I agree and my use of the word "mock" was merely meant to point out that
the easy availability of the source code is what causes people to overlook
the normally obvious legal implications of using someone else's code.
>>

That's probably true. it is interesting that the mainframe world is
very different from the PC or Unix worlds here. It is very common for
mainframe application code to be delivered with source code, allowing
customization -- but the users of such code are very aware that what
they can do with this source code is quite limited ....

In a way the term "copyleft" has tended to cloud the issue as well. I have
heard people say things like "Oh that code is not copyrighted, it is 
copyleft code". Even people who should know better make mistakes. Recently
the European Space Agency issued a tender in which they listed GNAT and
other GNU tools as "public domain". (they have received a polite but firm
letter insisting that they correct this incorrect categorization!)

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Kai Henningsen]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)  wrote on 26.06.97 in <dewar.867380006@merv>:

> Wes says
>
> <<1. I was trying to meet a set of requirements.  One of those
>    requirements was incompatible with the GPL.  Saying "yes you can"
>    is the same as saying "no that's not a requirement." and doesn't
>    help me meet that requirement.
> >>
>
> This is still an odd way of saying things ("incompatible with the GPL")
>
> The proper viewpoint is the following.
>
> I am writing a program
> I could simplify my job if I could use this code
> However, this code is copyrighted
> I do not have permission to copy the code
> Therefore I cannot use it

How about a compromise solution?

"The GPL doesn't allow me to use the code in this specific context."

Because that's what the GPL does, allowing people to use the code in  
specific contexts.

(The GPL does not forbid any use. The copyright laws forbid (most) use  
unless the copyright owner allows them, and the GPL is what does the  
allowing with GPL'd code. Without the GPL (or another license), nearly any  
use would be illegal.) (Nearly? Yes, nearly. Some uses are allowed by law.  
Read the law, or ask an intellectual property lawyer. IANAL, so I'll only  
provide the pointer.)

Just to be clear: I assume that Robert understands this, but some other  
people seem to have trouble with this concept.

> Note that the holder of the copyright may always give you MORE permission
> than the GPL allows, the GPL gives certain permissions to everyone other
> than the copyright holder. But the holder can do anything they like.
>
> Now it is true in practice that if the holder is FSF, they are pretty
> unlikely to give you permission for a usage that is inconsistent with
> the GPL, but who knows there could be some circumstances in which it
> would seem appropriate (I think allowing Wes to use it in proprietary
> software that his company intends to hoard is likely NOT one of these
> circumstances :-)

Another note, there are cases (like the Linux kernel) where there isn't  
one single copyright holder, but instead several hundreds. You _might_ get  
some additional license from these, but don't bet your house on it ...

Kai
--
Internet: kai@khms.westfalen.de
Bang: major_backbone!khms.westfalen.de!kai
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Kai said

<<> I am writing a program
> I could simplify my job if I could use this code
> However, this code is copyrighted
> I do not have permission to copy the code
> Therefore I cannot use it

How about a compromise solution?

"The GPL doesn't allow me to use the code in this specific context."

Because that's what the GPL does, allowing people to use the code in
specific contexts.
>>


I see no reason for a "compromise" here, because there is nothing in
need of a compromise agreement! My formulation above is by far the
clearest way of stating things.

It is true that the GPL does not allow you to use the code in this
particular context. It is also true that the declaration of independence
does not allow you to use it, and even more relevant that the Berne
convention does not allow you to use it.

The point of stating things the way I did is to emphasize that the situation
in this case (wanting to use the code in your proprietary program) is no
different than it would be with any other copyrighted code.

Sure, i understand that people somehow think that because the code is
copylefted (a confusing and unofficial term) they should be able to use it,
but that is just confusion. 

Saying the GPL does not allow you to use it sounds like the GPL is somehow
stopping you from using it. Which gives *entirely( the wrong impression.

Perhaps you could say

The GPL does not give me permission to use this code.

But the trouble with any of these formalations is that it tends to result
in a situation where people regard GPL'ed code as somehow particularly
unusable (note the tone of Wes Groleau's comments -- his management says:
you can't use GPL'ed code -- what his management SHOULD be saying is simply
that he cannot use any copyrighted code without permission of the copyright
holder -- there is nothing special about GPL'ed code in this regard.

And yes, people do risk their jobs if they improperly use copyrighted
code, and reasonably so, copyright is the law of the land whether you
like it or not!

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Stephen Leake]

Wes Groleau wrote:
> 
> > > However, his company refuses to distribute the sources for their
> > > product.  So, since he can't distribute it appropriately, he says
> > > he can't incorporate it.
> 
> > Nearly every time I hear someone say "can't" or "must" they are
> > talking about something which they have actually chosen, and want to
> > avoid (internal or external) criticism about their choice.
> 
> It makes no difference whether I say "I choose not" or "I can't"
> with the implication "not if I keep this job"  The issues here are:
> 
> 1. I was trying to meet a set of requirements.  One of those
>    requirements was incompatible with the GPL.  Saying "yes you can"
>    is the same as saying "no that's not a requirement." and doesn't
>    help me meet that requirement.

It is often useful to question whether the requirement that is giving
you a problem is real. I suspect you did question it, and the answer was
that it is real, but in many situations, it turns out it is not real.

-- 
- Stephe

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Samuel Mize]

Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG wrote:
> 
> Samuel Mize <smize@link.com> writes:
> 
> > However, his company refuses to distribute the sources for their
> > product.  So, since he can't distribute it appropriately, he says
> > he can't incorporate it.
> 
> > But some people go into a religious frenzy if you say you "can't"
> > incorporate GPL'd code into your product.  You CAN, they say, but
> > your company CHOOSES not to because of the distribution requirement.
> 
> That's the absolutely correct response.

It's meaningless.  He's doing a specific task assigned by a
company.  The task is "build this program, in this language,
on this platform."  He can't change the constraints on his own.
One of those constraints is to avoid GPL'd code.

And in the end, he *can't* incorporate GPL'd code into the
product because the company will fire him and strip it out
if he tries.


> People forget that, in general, they *chosse* who to work for--they
> *choose* to have children--they *choose* to drive a car, etc.
> 
> Nearly every time I hear someone say "can't" or "must" they are
> talking about something which they have actually chosen, and want to
> avoid (internal or external) criticism about their choice.

All we're saying is that, having chosen to work for an employer
who won't release the product under the GPL, he can't use legally
use GPL'd code.

If you were to say that he's working for unprincipled people and
should quit, it would at least have meaning.  Saying that he "can"
use GPL'd code does not.

> Thomas


Samuel Mize

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Sam says, talking about Wes

<<It's meaningless.  He's doing a specific task assigned by a
company.  The task is "build this program, in this language,
on this platform."  He can't change the constraints on his own.
One of those constraints is to avoid GPL'd code.

And in the end, he *can't* incorporate GPL'd code into the
product because the company will fire him and strip it out
if he tries.
>>

Notice that I think this entire discussion is academic, and can in practice
be left moot. Wes has not given any indication of a specific example where
the fact that code is under the GPL has in fact been a problem to him. It
would be interesting to see this example, if indeed one exists.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

> Notice that I think this entire discussion is academic, and can in practice

I think the entire discussion has gone beyond academic
and is approaching ridiculous (especially now that certain
malcontents have joined in).

> be left moot. Wes has not given any indication of a specific example where
> the fact that code is under the GPL has in fact been a problem to him. It

The most recent example was actually quite some time ago, when I was
trying to get a stack trace on a Pentium.  But the post in which I
changed the subject line to the one above was more recent.  The 
reasonI posted it then, was that I promised someone I'd look up the 
pertinent paragraph of the GPL and I had just gotten around to doing so.
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

> > be left moot. Wes has not given any indication of a specific example where
> > the fact that code is under the GPL has in fact been a problem to him. It
> 
> The most recent example was actually quite some time ago, when I was
> trying to get a stack trace on a Pentium.  

Oops.  I didn't finish.  There were two suggestions of GPL'd code 
related to the above: the first was "whatever is inside of GDB to
do that" and the other was "whatever gcc does for the 
__builtin_frame_address"

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Wes said

<<Oops.  I didn't finish.  There were two suggestions of GPL'd code
related to the above: the first was "whatever is inside of GDB to
do that" and the other was "whatever gcc does for the
__builtin_frame_address"
>>

Are you saying this from actually having looked at the code in question in
these two cases? Because if so, I am surprised. Yes, you could certainly
get useful ideas in both these cases (and no one is protecting the *ideas*
in this code, you are invited to borrow them), but I would be very surprised
if you could really copy code usefully in either of these cases.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG]

Samuel Mize <smize@link.com> writes:

> It's meaningless.  He's doing a specific task assigned by a
> company.  The task is "build this program, in this language,
> on this platform."  He can't change the constraints on his own.
> One of those constraints is to avoid GPL'd code.

But he chooses to do that task and to accept such assignments.  Nobody
other than himself is responsible for his being in this situation.  

> If you were to say that he's working for unprincipled people and
> should quit, it would at least have meaning.  Saying that he "can"
> use GPL'd code does not.

That might be the best choice; I'm not trying to tell him what his
choices should be, however.  I just want to point out that he DOES
have this choice.

He cannot place his decision about who to work for above all
criticism, and then place the onus on the FSF for "not helping him".  

Thomas

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

> He cannot place his decision about who to work for above all
> criticism, and then place the onus on the FSF for "not helping him".

Well, since you made the choice to engage in vain philosophy, ...

You are partly right.  I cannot place my decision above criticism,
since the critic is the one who has the choice whether or not to 
citicize.  However, I do have the choice of placing the onus anywhere
I choose.

But it should be obvious to most that the only onus I've placed on
anyone is the one I placed on the people who misrepresent the GPL.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Samuel Mize]

Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG wrote:
> 
> Samuel Mize <smize@link.com> writes:
> 
> > It's meaningless.  He's doing a specific task assigned by a
> > company.  The task is "build this program, in this language,
> > on this platform."  He can't change the constraints on his own.
> > One of those constraints is to avoid GPL'd code.
> 
> But he chooses to do that task and to accept such assignments.  Nobody
> other than himself is responsible for his being in this situation.

Who said otherwise?  I didn't say he couldn't refuse to do the
task; I said he can't do that particular task with GPL'd code.


> He cannot place his decision about who to work for above all
> criticism, and then place the onus on the FSF for "not helping him".

I don't recall him doing either.  Criticize away.  Nor did he
call FSF anything bad, or claim that they were failing in some
imagined duty.  He just said that he can't use GPL'd code
in building a source-proprietary product, which is true.  It
is intended specifically to be not useful for such a project.

The GPL is not a result of the forces of nature, applied
to code without any choice on the part of the developer.  The
constraint on using the code is due BOTH to his (company's)
choice AND the choice of the GPL'd-code developer.  The
GPL developer *CHOOSES* to not allow him use of that code,
for that purpose.

- - -

By the way, this thread did not start with a complaint about
GPL'd code.  It started when he complained that people say he
misrepresents the GPL when he says: he can't [legally]
use GPL'd code in a source-proprietary product.

But that's exactly the behavior that the GPL is designed to
prevent.  The GPL specifically disallows it.

Sam Mize

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG]

Samuel Mize <smize@link.com> writes:

> However, company decisions are constraints on what we engineers
> can do.  I can't change the brand of computer we use; I can't
> write Lisp or Forth code for our systems; I can't incorporate
> GPL'd code. At least, I can't do so and still be doing the job
> they're paying me to do.

What you mean is "I choose not to incorporate GPL'd code into my work
so that I can make more money".  This might be a rational choice; but
it is a choice, not anything forced upon you.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Leslie Mikesell]

In article <sz0iuz184ar.fsf@sugar-bombs.gnu.ai.mit.edu>,
Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG <thomas@gnu.ai.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> However, company decisions are constraints on what we engineers
>> can do.  I can't change the brand of computer we use; I can't
>> write Lisp or Forth code for our systems; I can't incorporate
>> GPL'd code. At least, I can't do so and still be doing the job
>> they're paying me to do.
>
>What you mean is "I choose not to incorporate GPL'd code into my work
>so that I can make more money".  This might be a rational choice; but
>it is a choice, not anything forced upon you.

The only choice is to do the work or not.  If the work requires using
other code that is under incompatible copyright restrictions, then
incorporating GPL'd code is not one of the possible choices.

Les Mikesell
  les@mcs.com

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

> I believe that he's saying that people on the net have reprimanded
> him (carped at him) for saying the GPL doesn't allow him to
> incorporate GPL'd source code.  "Of course you can incorporate it,"
> they say, "you just have to follow the rules about distributing it."

That's what they should have said.  Instead it's more like, "Of 
course you can use it.  You should actually read the GPL before 
deciding what it says."

> However, his company refuses to distribute the sources for their
> product.  So, since he can't distribute it appropriately, he says
> he can't incorporate it.

Almost.  It's not so much trying to "hide" the source; it's more
preserving the right to hide it in the future  :-)
I suspect they'd even be willing to tell the customer (they get 
a copy of the source) "The files ..., ..., and ... are covered
by the GPL.  The file ... is used by permission of UCB under the
terms in file ....  All others are copyright by us as stated in 
file headers."  But GPL 2.b does not allow that, at least not if
"contain" means what I think it means.

RMS, FSF, GNU, whover, can restrict their code any way they want.
I don't fault them for promoting their goals.  But as Samuel says:

> However, company decisions are constraints on what we engineers
> can do.  .....  I can't incorporate
> GPL'd code. At least, I can't do so and still be doing the job
> they're paying me to do.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

> However, company decisions are constraints on what we engineers
> can do.  .....  I can't incorporate
> GPL'd code. At least, I can't do so and still be doing the job
> they're paying me to do.


Indeed you cannot incorporate *any* copyrighted code in your code without
permission of the copyright holder. The GPL acts as a general set of
permissions to do certain things, but you can no more incorporate GPL'ed
code into your code without meeting the GPL conditions than you can
incorporate copyrighted Microsoft code into your code without permission!
Both actions would be violations of copyright.

On the other hand, as I repeatedly note, it is definitely the case that
GNAT runtime code with the modified GPL that explicitly expands the
permissions of what you can do with this copyrighted code is another
issue entirely.

Just as a typical propietary compiler contains runtime code, but is delivered
to you with a license that allows you to use this copyrighted runtime code in
your own applications, the modified GPL provides exactly the same permission
to use GNAT runtime code in your applications.

Yes, you may want your lawyers to check out the modified GPL to make sure
that it meets your requirements, just as you may want to have your lawyer
check the runtime license for your proprietary compiler to make sure that
it meets your requirements. In practice, this checking out process is
typically easier with the modified GPL, since it goes out of its way
to confer maximum rights, and minimal restrictions, whereas many commercial
runtime licenses are very much more restrictive (e.g. they may forbid any
user of the product incorporating the runtime code from doing reverse
engineering on these components).

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Samuel Mize]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> > However, company decisions are constraints on what we engineers
> > can do.  .....  I can't incorporate
> > GPL'd code. At least, I can't do so and still be doing the job
> > they're paying me to do.
...
> On the other hand, as I repeatedly note, it is definitely the case that
> GNAT runtime code with the modified GPL that explicitly expands the
> permissions of what you can do with this copyrighted code is another
> issue entirely.

Yes.  It is another issue entirely.  I don't believe that Wes
ever mentioned the GNAT runtime or the modified GPL.

Samuel Mize

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

> Yes.  It is another issue entirely.  I don't believe that Wes
> ever mentioned the GNAT runtime or the modified GPL.

Actually, I did.  I said that I feel that ACL and the GNAT
"special exception" are two very reasonable compromises between
the GPL extreme and the totally secret and proprietary extreme.

But I find it amusing how my complaint (that people have misstated
the GPL) has turned into such a free-for-all attacking the motives of
Robert Dewar, Richard Stallman, myself, and others .....

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

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Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[kdp0101]

Wes Groleau <no.such.user@does.not.exist.com> writes:

> > However, his company refuses to distribute the sources for their
> > product.  So, since he can't distribute it appropriately, he says
> > he can't incorporate it.
> 
> Almost.  It's not so much trying to "hide" the source; it's more
> preserving the right to hide it in the future  :-)
> I suspect they'd even be willing to tell the customer (they get 
> a copy of the source) "The files ..., ..., and ... are covered
> by the GPL.  The file ... is used by permission of UCB under the
> terms in file ....  All others are copyright by us as stated in 
> file headers."  But GPL 2.b does not allow that, at least not if
> "contain" means what I think it means.

That's what the LGPL is for. 

-Andi

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

kdp0101@hpmail.lrz-muenchen.de wrote:
> That's what the LGPL is for.

The LGPL is totally irrelevant to the restrictions on source code
covered by theoriginal GPL.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

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Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

<<It does not seem unreasonable to me either.  But David Weller's
approach, and the GNAT approach are far more helpful in that they
allow me to actually use the code, not just look at it.  Call me
(adjective) if you want for cooperating with software hoarders,
but I tilt at bigger windmills.
>>

I am not sure what you mean by Dave Weller's approach. If this
"approach" is consistent with the legal requirements of the GPL
fine. Otherwise, it is definitely NOT fine. In particular, the
viewpoint of Dave's anonymous emailers is definitely suspect.
The issue is one of distribution, it is OK to do anything internally
with GPL'ed stuff (which is analogous to the right to make your
own censored copy of a Hollywood movie). It is NOT OK to distribute
something without following the GPL rules (analogous to not being
able to distribute or sell your censored version of the movie).

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

> I am not sure what you mean by Dave Weller's approach. If this
> "approach" is consistent with the legal requirements of the GPL
> fine. Otherwise, it is definitely NOT fine. ....

Perhaps I am confusing David Weller and David Wheeler.  I am referring
to the Ada Community License--much shorter than the GPL, just as clear
if not clearer, and which does not impose its terms on other code by
association.  It is completely independent of the GPL--unless of course
you try to mix GPL code with ACL code.  :-)

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
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GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Roy T. Fielding]

>Perhaps I am confusing David Weller and David Wheeler.  I am referring
>to the Ada Community License--much shorter than the GPL, just as clear
>if not clearer, and which does not impose its terms on other code by
>association.  It is completely independent of the GPL--unless of course
>you try to mix GPL code with ACL code.  :-)

Which is exactly my problem.  I am a free software developer without the
attitude problem (witness wwwstat, MOMspider, libwww-perl, Apache, etc.).
Traditionally, I have used either the UC (Berkeley) license or the
Artistic License to distribute my source code, because I actually *want*
to see commercial providers reuse it (with acknowledgement).

I am working on a project that needs an Ada95 binding to sockets, and I
happen to know that there is one enmeshed within the DSA code of Garlic
(the guts of GLADE, which is distributed under the GPL).  I could very
easily extract that code and distribute it with my project's source,
but in doing so I'd infect my better-than-GPL free source code
with the GPL virus.  Unless the GLADE folks can be convinced to use the
Ada Community License, which is just the Artistic License updated to
refer to Ada libraries instead of C and perl, then the best I could
do is create a separate Garlic-lite package with GPL terms,
distribute the two packages separately (which wastes my time), and
inform third-parties that they'll have to write their own sockets binding
if they want to use my library without distributing their own source.

The question for the GLADE developers is why are you distributing under
the GPL?  Is it really your intention to prevent proprietary use of
the GNAT Distributed Systems Annex?  If not, then LGPL is more appropriate,
though even the LGPL has some bone-headed provisions.

If you just want to receive credit for your work, and don't have the
attitude that all derivatives must be LGPL/GPL'd, then just use the
Ada Community License.  Your project will be much more useful to others,
and more successful in the long run.

 ...Roy T. Fielding
    Department of Information & Computer Science    (fielding@ics.uci.edu)
    University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-3425    fax:+1(714)824-1715
    http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Robert Dewar]

<<The question for the GLADE developers is why are you distributing under
the GPL?  Is it really your intention to prevent proprietary use of
the GNAT Distributed Systems Annex?  If not, then LGPL is more appropriate,
though even the LGPL has some bone-headed provisions.
>>

Right now, the public releases of GLADE are for general exploratory use,
and are not intended for incorporation into proprietary code. The intention
is that in future there will be releases of GLADE which use the modified
GPL in appropriate contexts. No public release policy has been established
for GLADE yet (which is a quite separate product from GNAT).

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Robert Dewar]

Roy Fielding asks

<<The question for the GLADE developers is why are you distributing under
the GPL?  Is it really your intention to prevent proprietary use of
the GNAT Distributed Systems Annex?  If not, then LGPL is more appropriate,
though even the LGPL has some bone-headed provisions.
>>


I just checked the most recent public release, and it is simply 
misinformation to say that GLADE is distributed under the GPL. All
units of GLADE are distributed under the modified GPL that allows
free use (this modified GPL is far more permissive than the more
restrictive LGPL).

What exactly is your problem? Are you just assuming that the GLADE
components are under the GPL without checking?

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Roy T. Fielding]

In <dewar.867438815@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>I just checked the most recent public release, and it is simply 
>misinformation to say that GLADE is distributed under the GPL. All
>units of GLADE are distributed under the modified GPL that allows
>free use (this modified GPL is far more permissive than the more
>restrictive LGPL).

Version 1.02 (the one that was "the most recent" last week -- I haven't
had a chance to see if there is a newer one) contains the GPL without
any modifications or exceptions.  Can you point me to a release that
contains something different?  If the license has changed since 1.02,
then life will be much easier.

>What exactly is your problem? Are you just assuming that the GLADE
>components are under the GPL without checking?

No.  What is your problem, Robert?  Personally, I find your attitude,
and the policies of ACT regarding hidden releases and non-public
patches, to be a considerable hindrance to the development of free
software for the Ada95 community.  Compared to free software projects
like Apache and Linux, ACT's *paid* support is miserable.  And I *am*
a paid customer.  If you guys would just release the software and
provide a decent problem-report database, then the bugs would be
discovered and fixed faster, and people would have a lot more *fun*
being part of the community.  As it is, you guys are just getting
in the way.

 ...Roy T. Fielding
    Department of Information & Computer Science    (fielding@ics.uci.edu)
    University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-3425    fax:+1(714)824-1715
    http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Robert Dewar]

Roy Fielding says

<<Version 1.02 (the one that was "the most recent" last week -- I haven't
had a chance to see if there is a newer one) contains the GPL without
any modifications or exceptions.  Can you point me to a release that
contains something different?  If the license has changed since 1.02,
then life will be much easier.
>>


Since it is always worrisome when someone claims a slipup of this
magnitude, I double checked.

I chedcked the 1.02 release of GLADE which is the current public release.
If you have the actual sources that we initially distributed to the
net, and which corresponded to what I found at the site I looked at,
the Garlic sources are definitely using the modified GPL. The gnatdist
directory is using the regular GPL, as expected, and the ada directory has
some sources using modified GPL and some using GPL as appropriate.

If you do not see this in your version, then somehow it has been corrupted.
This is hard to believe, but always possible, we have no control over
versions of GNAT and GLADE outside ACT. The only way to be absolutely sure
that you have the version we distribute is to get it from us. But in
practice although discrepancies are possible in theory, we have never seen
them really occur.

Finally, if your problem is that you want a version of gnatdist that is
not covered by the GPL. It is a little surprising to me that anyone would
need this (unless they were planning on producing a proprietary version
of gnatdist, something we definitely want to prevent). It is double
surprising that someone at a university would need this.

If anyone *does* have a case in which the licensing seems to prevent doing
something that you think we would consider reasonable, then you should
contact us to discuss the matter. So far, the only case in which we have seen
the issue of the GPL come up is in the context of two other Ada compiler
vendors who were interested in using the GNAT front end with their proprietary
back ends.

The outcome in these two cases is that, told that they could not do that, one
vendor decided to use another front end, the other decided to use GNAT and
make their back end and tool chain all GPL'ed.

The former outcome does not bother us one bit. The latter outcome is very
pleasing, and means that there will be more free software available to the
Ada community.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[David Kastrup]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 574 bytes --]


fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu (Roy T. Fielding) writes:

> software for the Ada95 community.  Compared to free software projects
> like Apache and Linux, ACT's *paid* support is miserable.  And I *am*
> a paid customer.

Well, if you are actually *paid* as a customer, you should not
complain.  Sounds like a pretty enviable position to me.



-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Stefan Monnier]

fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu (Roy T. Fielding) writes:
> And I *am*  a paid customer.

Wow ! That sounds mighty interesting !
How did you manage to get into such a desirable situation ?


        Stefan

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Roy T. Fielding]

>Well I understand that, particularly in the case of academic people
>fiddling around, it might be quite reasonable to have miscellaneous
>patches floating around, but for our mainstream customers, very
>careful configuration control is extremely important. I really don't
>think any of them would apreciate us releasing a new release of GNAT
>every day! 

Have you talked to your customers about that?  I am certainly aware that
many people prefer stable releases, but making unstable releases available
to those that need/want them doesn't affect those other customers at all.
The only thing you need to do is label them appropriately and make sure
that the labels are understood.

The problem that I run into is that I cannot distribute software that
doesn't compile or run correctly on one of your public releases, even if
I have a private version of the compiler with the corresponding bug fixed.
Also, because the changes between releases are large, it is much more
difficult for me to isolate new bugs introduced between releases.

>By the way, it is quite out of the question to make our problem report
>database public. Many of the problems involve customers proprietary
>code which we protect extremely carefully.

I wouldn't make the entire database public, just those entries that
are public.  In fact, I'd probably use separate databases for the two.
What we need to see is a list of problems (open, in-progress, and closed)
which is kept up-to-date and searchable on-line.  More importantly,
everyone should be encouraged to find and/or fix problems, not just
the contractees, and the only way to do that is to make them public.

>One thing to remember in this discussion is that the continued development
>and improvement of GNAT depends on support from our major customers. As a
>result, it is those customers who determine the requirements, and we find
>that they are much more interested in stablility than in haveing very
>frequent releases.

From my perspective, having founded several community-based software
development projects, I find that statement to be a bit bizarre.  I guess
that is why Eric Raymond calls it ``the "cathedral" model of FSF''.
Continued development and improvement of GNAT doesn't depend on your
major customers -- that can be accomplished without having ACT as the 
high priest.  What your customers need ACT for is validated releases
and guaranteed hand-holding, neither of which benefit from infrequent
private releases vs frequent public releases.

In my opinion, you should be finding ways to let the community help
you support and improve GNAT (what we all want) rather than play one
customer over another as a business strategy.

>It really is hard for me to believe that you think it would be a good
>thing for us to post every patch to GNAT on CLA as soon as we develop it.
>Anyway, we strongly disagree, and are not about to do this under any
>circumstances.

I wouldn't post it to CLA.  I wouldn't even read CLA if there was a
reasonable alternative.  Use the Web.  Remote CVS would be even better,
but that depends on your own development environment.

Anyway, I'll shut up now. I wouldn't have even raised the issue if
you hadn't claimed that ACT support was somehow inherently better than
free software support.  Free software has the capacity to enable an open
development process in which any competent user can become an active
participant, rather than just a passive recipient.  No closed development
group can compete with that.

.....Roy

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Roy T. Fielding]

In <dewar.867556141@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>What exactly are you referrring to? gnatdist is of course under the GPL
>as are all gnat utilities. But the runtime routines that are bound to
>executable programs are indeed under the modified GPL. Please be explicit
>in what you are referring to. 

Sorry, I now see where the confusion is coming from.  The individual
source files do include the exception to the modified GPL, which is
something I hadn't checked.  I was stopped short by the top-level README
and COPYING files, which are plain GPL v2, and the lack of any other
COPYING file in the Garlic subdirectory.  The top-level README should
mention the different terms for what is in Garlic, since they currently
contradict each other (which is bad from any perspective).

On a related note, there is one problem with the modified GPL.  As written,
it doesn't allow the recipient to redistribute the package (or, in my case,
a small component of the package) under the same modified GPL.  I doubt
that is the intention.  You could add that possibility to the list in
the first sentence, i.e.

-- GARLIC is free software;  you can redistribute it and/or modify it under --
-- terms of the  GNU General Public License, with or without the single     --
-- exception mentioned below, as published by the Free Software Foundation; --
-- either version 2,  or (at your option)  any later version.               --

However, it would be more appropriate from a legal perspective to make the
modifications within the COPYING file, possibly renaming it GnatGPL, rather
than deal with the issue of having two contradictory terms.  It would
probably be worth it just to avoid these types of discussions.

....Roy

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Robert Dewar]

<<Sorry, I now see where the confusion is coming from.  The individual
source files do include the exception to the modified GPL, which is
something I hadn't checked.  I was stopped short by the top-level README
and COPYING files, which are plain GPL v2, and the lack of any other
COPYING file in the Garlic subdirectory.  The top-level README should
mention the different terms for what is in Garlic, since they currently
contradict each other (which is bad from any perspective).
>>

We certainly have to distribute COPYING as is, that is clear.
We can certainly clarify the readme file.

So far, everyone interested in reusing the sources for particular units
has at least looked at the sources for these units, and seen the
associated copyright (in general, you expect the copyright notice
to be part of the particular deocument, as is the case here), so no one
else has ever run into this confusion before.

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[David Weller]

In article <5ousck$6rj@kiwi.ics.uci.edu>,
Roy T. Fielding <fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu> wrote:
>If you just want to receive credit for your work, and don't have the
>attitude that all derivatives must be LGPL/GPL'd, then just use the
>Ada Community License.  Your project will be much more useful to others,
>and more successful in the long run.
>

Well, I don't know about the "more successful" part -- that depends on
how good the software is anyway :-)  

I've been following this thread for a little bit, and I'd like to toss
in my opinion (what th' heck, right?).  The significant difference
between the GPL and the ACL is much like the difference between
capitalism and communism*.  The GPL assumes all users are sinners, and
takes the approach of requiring the users to affirm, by usage of
GPL'ed code, that they will not unfairly exploit the free software
they are taking advantage of.  There's all sorts of legal stuff in
there that basically prevents people from exploiting various
loopholes.  The ACL is a more open approach, assuming that people will
not unfairly exploit the software under looser "guidelines" (well, not
really "guidelines", but certainly less onerous than the GPL's terms).
The Library GPL and the "ACT exception" to the LGPL are two licensing
terms that fall between (if the GNU folks will permit me this
comparison) the GPL and the ACL.

Certainly one can say that the ACL muddies the waters, but, being a
Perl fanatic that I also am (sorry, Brian! :-), I've seen the Perl
Artistic License used quite successfully -- without all the "baggage"
of something like the GPL.

One final comment:  I think the GPL and the LGPL have their place in
our profession.  I also would like to think that you could use GPL'ed
code in _any_ situation, but in the "grey" areas, you need to write to
the author to get a statement on whether your intended usage falls
within what the perceive to be the licensing terms.  Obviously, that's
more difficult with "multi-source" software like GCC.  Just remember
that the GNU licenses are designed to prohibit unscrupulous profiting
of other people's work.  If you don't think you are, and the GNU
licenses interfere, there's also no reason why you can't plead with
the author(s) to modify the terms of their license -- that's perfectly
legal.

*Of course, there's the "other" saying that says: In capitalism, man
exploits man.  In communism, it's just the opposite :-)

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Robert Dewar]

Dave says

<<I've been following this thread for a little bit, and I'd like to toss
in my opinion (what th' heck, right?).  The significant difference
between the GPL and the ACL is much like the difference between
capitalism and communism*.  The GPL assumes all users are sinners, and
takes the approach of requiring the users to affirm, by usage of
GPL'ed code, that they will not unfairly exploit the free software
they are taking advantage of.  There's all sorts of legal stuff in
>>



This is complete nonsense, and frankly I am a little surprised at the
level of misunderstanding (I would have thought Dave understood the
philosophy behind the GPL better).

The business about the GPL assuming all users are sinners is fanciful
stuff, but bears no relation to reality.

The real point is a purely pragmatic one. Most people think of public
domain software as being software that anyone can do anything with.


Yes, indeed they can, they can make a minor modification, or even just
reformat the code, and then copyright the result and make it proprietary.

Why does this bother us? Because of some philosophical concern about
what is right and wrong in the software world? Because we want to be
sure to get proper credit for our work? Becuase we do not want people
to unfairly profit from what we do?

NONE OF THE ABOVE!

The concern is purely pragmatic. We are writing software that we want
to be available to the general comunity and *stay available to the
general community*. It is the stay available that is the concern.

Suppose the government had not insisted on GNAT being under the GPL, and
instead the NYU team placed it under the less restrictive, supposedly
freer ACL.

Now, when the contract ended, sure enough the version of GNAT available
at that time (1.something???) would be available to everyone.

But Ada Core Technologies could have then taken that version, and 
developed it as a purely proprietary product and charged whatever
they liked for it. 

The big value of a product like GNAT is precisely that it remains open
to general use. Commercialization of this kind would have complete
undermined one of the important purposes of GNAT, which was to provide
a high quality Ada 95 compiler, available to the general academic
community with sources, and which would continue to be available.

Sure, in theory, someone else could take the 1.xx versoin and develop
it independently, but that is an unlikely scenario. We have over and over
again seen freely available academic products turn into proprietary
products that are no longer freely available.

We thought it was important to ensure that this could not happen with GNAT,
and so did the government, which is why it insisted on the use of the GPL.

Going back to the Booch components, Dave is of course free to choose any
approach he likes for his work, but in practice the only difference between
the ACL and the use of a broadened GPL such as is used by GNAT is that
it makes it possible for someone to produce a proprietary version of
these components based on Dave's work.

I personally think that having a freely available version of the Ada 95
form of the components is a tremendous advantage to tthe Ada community.
If some company takes this and commecializes it so that a few years from
now you have a situation where the only really usable version is a 
proprietary version that you have to pay for and cannot get full source
access, then we have lost something valuable.

That's why I think it is unfortunate to use the ACL instead of the modified
GPL for such projects, it seems freer, but can very easily lead to much
less freedom.

Note another scenario which is even worse.

Suppose the GNU components which along with Linus' kernel make up the
GNU-based Linux system had been written under something analogous to
the ACL.

Today we have three companies competing in the support of Linux, but all
the changes an improvements they make are available to one another and
to the entire Linux community.

If the GPL had not been used, we might see three divergent versions of
Linux, all proprietary, with competing features. The tremendous value
of Linux and the original GNU vision would be essentially lost, and we
would have just a few more incomaptible miscellaneous Unix versions around.

THe whole point of the GPL is entirely pragmatic. The idea is to make
as much software as possible as freely available as possible, because this
free availability benefits users.

I gave a talk at the Ada Europe Conference on why free software was of
tremendous importance in building reliable systems. The key point here is
that you cannot afford to build reliable systems on top of black box
layers of operating systems, real time kernels, and Ada runtime systems
for which you have no access to the sources, or only limited access to
the sources. For high reliability code, you need total control.

Note that if it were really true that the only point behind the GPL were
the kind of philosophical issues that Dave refers to, then obviousoly there
would be no such thing as the modified GPL or the LGPL. The idea of allowing
this modification is precisely to make it possible to create proprietary
tools using GNU compilers.

Now, why would the FSF encourage that? Simple, the argument is pragmatic.
if we encourage everyone to use free software compilers and systems, then
more resources will be available to improve and support these compilers
and systems, and these improvements benefit all users.

Yes, obviously from the user community point of view, it would be desirable
if the software being produced were freely available rather than proprietary,
but it is important to understand that the issue here is a pragmatic one,
not purely a philosphical one.

The idea of free software is to promote an environment in which the
computing community can get its job done more effectively. The tremendous
success of Linux shows that this idea can be a powerful one. More and more
people are switching to using Linux, not because they want to join some
polictical movement, but because it is the best technical tool for the job!

Robert dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[David Weller]

In article <dewar.867445762@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Dave says
><<I've been following this thread for a little bit, and I'd like to toss
>in my opinion (what th' heck, right?).  The significant difference
>between the GPL and the ACL is much like the difference between
>capitalism and communism*.  The GPL assumes all users are sinners, and
>takes the approach of requiring the users to affirm, by usage of
>GPL'ed code, that they will not unfairly exploit the free software
>they are taking advantage of.  There's all sorts of legal stuff in
>>>
>
>This is complete nonsense, and frankly I am a little surprised at the
>level of misunderstanding (I would have thought Dave understood the
>philosophy behind the GPL better).
>
Not complete nonsense at all, your entire post captured exactly what I
meant.  I understand the GPL quite well, and in fact once strongly
considered using the same modified GPL that ACT uses on some of their
sources.  Unfortunately, I had _way_ too many people and companies say
they wouldn't touch my code if it was under GNU anything.  Sure, I
could have taken the time and effort to convince them otherwise, but
the ACL basically removed the "heavy" parts at the expense of risking
proprietary digressions (although it's not as bad as RObert points out
-- the ACL commonly referes to a "standard distribution" -- if you buy
a proprietary version that isn't derived from the standard
distribution, or if you download a release that's not a "standard
distribution", _you_ assume the risk).  All in all, I have enither the
time nor the energy to combat FUD.  It's hard enough to get the
components done in a reasonable amount of time!

Robert's thoughts are correct though, I understand the GPL/LGPL _very_
well :-)  My company frequently (and legally) uses GPL and LGPL
software on an almost daily basis without worries, fear, or paranoia.

>The business about the GPL assuming all users are sinners is fanciful
>stuff, but bears no relation to reality.
>
It wasn't meant to bear a relation to reality, it was a metaphoric
statement.  I think anybody could have realized that.

>Going back to the Booch components, Dave is of course free to choose any
>approach he likes for his work, but in practice the only difference between
>the ACL and the use of a broadened GPL such as is used by GNAT is that
>it makes it possible for someone to produce a proprietary version of
>these components based on Dave's work.
>
True, but the ACL places limits on how you can make a "proprietary"
version.  In particular, you must indicate it clearly enough such that
the obtainer cannot confuse what they are getting with the "standard
distribution".  The "proprietary" sense also comes from the fact that
a compiler vendor may replace the implementation with a "tuned"
version, but ensuring that the library is still
"specification-compliant".  

>proprietary version that you have to pay for and cannot get full source
>access, then we have lost something valuable.
>
>That's why I think it is unfortunate to use the ACL instead of the modified
>GPL for such projects, it seems freer, but can very easily lead to much
>less freedom.
>

Now who's speeading FUD? :-)

>Note another scenario which is even worse.
>
Scanario deleted:  Incompatible with the ACL.  Go back and reread
section 3.

>THe whole point of the GPL is entirely pragmatic. The idea is to make
>as much software as possible as freely available as possible, because this
>free availability benefits users.
>

The ACL supports those goals also.  There certainly would be less of a
need for the ACL if people were less paranoid about the GNU licenses.

>The idea of free software is to promote an environment in which the
>computing community can get its job done more effectively. The tremendous
>success of Linux shows that this idea can be a powerful one. More and more
>people are switching to using Linux, not because they want to join some
>polictical movement, but because it is the best technical tool for the job!
>

Well, Perl is doing quite well under the Perl Artistic License, so it,
too, is a model for success.  That's what the ACL is based on.  

I think Robert and I have VERY similar philosophies overall.

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Robert Dewar]

iDave Weller says

<<Not complete nonsense at all, your entire post captured exactly what I
meant.  I understand the GPL quite well, and in fact once strongly
considered using the same modified GPL that ACT uses on some of their
sources.  Unfortunately, I had _way_ too many people and companies say
they wouldn't touch my code if it was under GNU anything.  Sure, I
>>

Well it is even harder to combat imaginary second hand FUD!

Actually, we have found that this kind of uninformed worry about GNU is
not a major impediment for us. We have occaionsally run into some concerns,
but have always been able to resolve the concerns. Sure there may be some
big companies that are put off GNAT by such FUD, but it's not a major 
factor.

We have in fact had the experience of being told the same thing (my company,
xxxx, will never use GNU stuff by policy), and then a little while later
they order GNAT support and are using it on major projects -- so in some
cases, I think people do imagine there is a problem where there is none
(that is the imaginary in my first line up there).

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5p0eum$1293$1@prime.imagin.net> dweller@news.imagin.net (David Weller) writes:
>The Library GPL and the "ACT exception" to the LGPL are two licensing
>terms that fall between (if the GNU folks will permit me this
>comparison) the GPL and the ACL.

First of all, the exception being referred to is an exception to the
LGPL, not the GPL.  Secondly, it did not originate with ACT, but was
used in the small set of run-time functions used in GCC.

>Obviously, that's more difficult with "multi-source" software like GCC. 

GCC is not "multi-source".  All code to be included in GCC must have
its copyright transferred to the FSF.

Now, it is indeed true that the person who assigns code to the FSF
retains some rights that nobody else does, but that raises a whole
different set of complex issues, which I think would just muddy the
waters yet further and has, so far as I know, never been invoked.

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Robert Dewar]

Richard said

<<First of all, the exception being referred to is an exception to the
LGPL, not the GPL.  Secondly, it did not originate with ACT, but was
used in the small set of run-time functions used in GCC.
>>

That's not correct, it is an exception to the GPL (at least in the case
of GNAT), and in addition, the wording is NOT copied from the run-time
functions used in GCC, because it spefcifically handles generics. Here
once again is the wording of this exception (which is an exception to
the standard GPL paragraph. In fact here they both are together:

-- GNAT is free software;  you can  redistribute it  and/or modify it under --
-- terms of the  GNU General Public License as published  by the Free Soft- --
-- ware  Foundation;  either version 2,  or (at your option) any later ver- --
-- sion.  GNAT is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITH- --
-- OUT ANY WARRANTY;  without even the  implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY --
-- or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License --
-- for  more details.  You should have  received  a copy of the GNU General --
-- Public License  distributed with GNAT;  see file COPYING.  If not, write --
-- to  the Free Software Foundation,  59 Temple Place - Suite 330,  Boston, --
-- MA 02111-1307, USA.                                                      --
--                                                                          --
-- As a special exception,  if other files  instantiate  generics from this --
-- unit, or you link  this unit with other files  to produce an executable, --
-- this  unit  does not  by itself cause  the resulting  executable  to  be --
-- covered  by the  GNU  General  Public  License.  This exception does not --
-- however invalidate  any other reasons why  the executable file  might be --
-- covered by the  GNU Public License.                                      --

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Robert Dewar]

Richard said

<<Richard said

<<First of all, the exception being referred to is an exception to the
LGPL, not the GPL.  Secondly, it did not originate with ACT, but was
used in the small set of run-time functions used in GCC.
>>


which confused me because it seemed exactly wrong. I just talked to him,
and he confirmed that he got LGPL and GPL the wrong way round in that
first sentence :-)

Also his point on the exception originating with GCC was that the *idea*
of such an exception does indeed originate there.

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Richard Kenner]

In article <dewar.867464659@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>the wording is NOT copied from the run-time
>functions used in GCC, because it spefcifically handles generics.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was identical, just that the
general idea of such an exception is quite old.

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5p1s2l$2a2$1@news.nyu.edu> kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:
>In article <5p0eum$1293$1@prime.imagin.net> dweller@news.imagin.net (David Weller) writes:
>>The Library GPL and the "ACT exception" to the LGPL are two licensing
>>terms that fall between (if the GNU folks will permit me this
>>comparison) the GPL and the ACL.
>
>First of all, the exception being referred to is an exception to the
>LGPL, not the GPL.

Oops!  As should have been obvious, since I was making a *correction*
to the original statement, I meant to say that it was an exception to
the GPL, not the LGPL, as was claimed.

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[David Weller]

In article <5p1s2l$2a2$1@news.nyu.edu>,
Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>In article <5p0eum$1293$1@prime.imagin.net> dweller@news.imagin.net (David Weller) writes:
>>The Library GPL and the "ACT exception" to the LGPL are two licensing
>>terms that fall between (if the GNU folks will permit me this
>>comparison) the GPL and the ACL.
>
>First of all, the exception being referred to is an exception to the
>LGPL, not the GPL.  Secondly, it did not originate with ACT, but was
>used in the small set of run-time functions used in GCC.
>

Oops!  I thought I'd made an error in my original comments, because
the modification I was referring to was to the GPL.

Now Richard corrects me that it really was the LGPL.  I'm so confused,
and _I_ started all the confusion.  I apologize!


>>Obviously, that's more difficult with "multi-source" software like GCC. 
>
>GCC is not "multi-source".  All code to be included in GCC must have
>its copyright transferred to the FSF.
>

Ah, true.  I forgot about that "tiny" condition :-)

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Steve Peltz]

In article <5p1s2l$2a2$1@news.nyu.edu>,
Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>GCC is not "multi-source".  All code to be included in GCC must have
>its copyright transferred to the FSF.

Someone must have illegally modified all the source versions of GCC
I've seen, then, because they all claim that the standard GPL applies
to them.  The GPL does NOT require that copyright be transferred to the
FSF. There's a HUGE difference between something being licensed under
the GPL and something being owned by the FSF.

If I make a derivative work and distribute it (such distribution being under
the GPL), the code that I contributed is still copyright by me, and I may
use that portion of code that is wholly mine without restriction. If the
rest of GCC is copyright by the FSF, they can not give permission for MY
code to be used in any way that is not consistent with the GPL. Now, the FSF
may well refuse to distribute modifications to GCC that are not assigned to
them; that doesn't stop me from creating my own distribution of it.

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5ph2sp$qdg$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> peltz@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes:
>In article <5p1s2l$2a2$1@news.nyu.edu>,
>Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>GCC is not "multi-source".  All code to be included in GCC must have
>>its copyright transferred to the FSF.
>
>Someone must have illegally modified all the source versions of GCC
>I've seen, then, because they all claim that the standard GPL applies
>to them.  The GPL does NOT require that copyright be transferred to the
>FSF. There's a HUGE difference between something being licensed under
>the GPL and something being owned by the FSF.

Right.  

>If I make a derivative work and distribute it (such distribution being under
>the GPL), the code that I contributed is still copyright by me, and I may
>use that portion of code that is wholly mine without restriction.

If that code can be usefull severed from GCC, which is not normally
the case when talking about modifications.

>Now, the FSF may well refuse to distribute modifications to GCC that are not
>assigned to them;

That's exactly what I meant.

The point is that "GCC", as distributed by the FSF, is not a
"multi-source" copyright situation: it's all copyrighted by one
entity: the FSF.

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Robert Dewar]

Dave, I am quoting your original post here

<<I've been following this thread for a little bit, and I'd like to toss
in my opinion (what th' heck, right?).  The significant difference
between the GPL and the ACL is much like the difference between
capitalism and communism*.  The GPL assumes all users are sinners, and
takes the approach of requiring the users to affirm, by usage of
GPL'ed code, that they will not unfairly exploit the free software
they are taking advantage of.  There's all sorts of legal stuff in
there that basically prevents people from exploiting various
loopholes.  The ACL is a more open approach, assuming that people will
not unfairly exploit the software under looser "guidelines" (well, not
really "guidelines", but certainly less onerous than the GPL's terms).
The Library GPL and the "ACT exception" to the LGPL are two licensing
terms that fall between (if the GNU folks will permit me this
comparison) the GPL and the ACL.
>>

It is the above paragraph, which you seem to state as your opinion, that
I regard as highly inaccurate. It is one thing to complain about FUD that
other people are subject to when it comes to the GPL, but if you really
believe what you say above, then you are in the business of generating
this FUD.

There is a big difference between saying "well a lot of people are worried
that the GPL says xxx", and actually saying "xxx" yourself. If you know
the GPL well, then you should reread the above paragraph, and realize
that what it says is plain wrong in more than one respect.

If indeed you are now saying "sorry, this is not my opinion, but it is
what other people seem to think", then that's another matter, but in that
case your original post was, to say the least, confusing and misleading!

By all means argue objectively in favor of one licensing scheme or another,
but please let's not spread rumour and inaccurate inuendo here!

Re: GLADE and GPL (was: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[David Weller]

In article <dewar.867813323@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> scolds
Dave Weller:
>If indeed you are now saying "sorry, this is not my opinion, but it is
>what other people seem to think", then that's another matter, but in that
>case your original post was, to say the least, confusing and misleading!
>

Good point.  Your analysis is correct, mostly :-)

>By all means argue objectively in favor of one licensing scheme or another,
>but please let's not spread rumour and inaccurate inuendo here!
>

From my own perspective, I don't care which licensing scheme somebody
chooses, as long as _anybody_ using _any_ of the licensing schemes
we're talking about takes the time to truly understand them.

-- 
Booch Components Homepage: www.rivatech.com ||Ada Homepage: www.adahome.com

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Samuel Mize]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> <<It does not seem unreasonable to me either.  But David Weller's
> approach, and the GNAT approach are far more helpful in that they
> allow me to actually use the code, not just look at it.  Call me
> (adjective) if you want for cooperating with software hoarders,
> but I tilt at bigger windmills.
> >>
> 
> I am not sure what you mean by Dave Weller's approach.

It is the "Ada Community License," entirely separate from the GPL.
He is NOT attempting to apply it to GPL'd code, but is using it
for items built and released by him (notably the Booch components).
It is based on the Perl "artistic license," and provides more
copying/modification freedom.

It is described under:
    http://www.rivatech.com/booch/index.html

Sam Mize

--
-- Samuel Mize    (817) 619-8622    smize@link.com    "Team Ada"
-- Hughes Training Inc.  PO Box 6171 m/s 400, Arlington TX 76005

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2249 bytes --]


kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:

@> [I've changed the newsgroup from gnu.gcc, which doesn't exist, to 
@> gnu.misc.discuss, which is the proper newsgroup to discuss the GPL.]
@> 
@> In article <33B014E3.3343@no.such.com> Spam Hater <no.such.user@no.such.com> writes:
@> >So, if any part of my program contains any part (or derivation of)
@> >their program, I have two choices:
@> >1. Distribute my program "as a whole" under the terms of the GPL
@> >2. Don't distribute my program.
@> 
@> That's correct and exactly the status of the resulting work.  If you
@> want to continue to view your code as proprietary, then you have two
@> different copyright terms for pieces of the code and the only way to
@> satisfy both is not to distribute the work at all.
@> 
@> >(If you play with my ball, you play by my rules.)
@> >
@> >I am sympathetic to the goals of the Free Software Foundation, but I
@> >think that--by trying too hard to coerce other people to make 
@> >software "free"--the above paragraph is counter-productive to those 
@> >goals.  It forces me to re-invent things just so my employers can 
@> >say they own them.
@> 
@> That may be, but the whole point is that people have spent
@> considerable amount of time, usually without any compensation, to
@> create the GPL'd code in question.  They are doing this because they
@> want to help the public in general and don't want their work to be
@> used to help somebody else do something that is against their
@> philosophy.  This does not seem particularly unreasonable to me.

Much more important:  it avoids that some firm creates an own version
of, say, the GNU C compiler with just a few bugs fixed and sells that
without source.  Another does the same, only fixes other bugs.  There
is no chance to have all bugs fixed, and if you use the free version,
you'll get an inferior version (no bugs fixed) of the same software.

In short, you get the same mess as with commercial software, even
though things started with a GPL program.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:
> That may be, but the whole point is that people have spent
> considerable amount of time, usually without any compensation, to
> create the GPL'd code in question.  They are doing this because they
> want to help the public in general and don't want their work to be
> used to help somebody else do something that is against their
> philosophy.  This does not seem particularly unreasonable to me.

If that philosopy is the "Golden Rule" (Kantian) as espoused by
Stallman in his GNU Manifesto, then the GPL isn't for you.  Stallman,
for some reason, has watered its spirit down considerably for the GPL.
I'd recommend that you find some other license agreement that would
prevent someone from enhancing your code and then engaging in the
following exercise of the "letter of the law":

  From: dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)
  To: dewar@gnat.com, ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us
  Cc: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu
  Subject: Re: please set me straight...
  Date: Thu, 26 Jun 97 18:02:23 EDT

  <<By releasing 3.10 to your customers, you have "distributed" it within
  the meaning of the GPL.
  >>

  Yes, anmd the people we have distributed it to have access to the sources
  since they are distributed with the binaries. In fact the announcement
  of availability to this group specifically notes that the sources are
  available with the binaries.

  But just because we distribute the binaries to person X does not mean we
  havbe to distroibute them to person Y, that is your confusion. The only
  requirement of the GPL is that when we distribute the system to person
  X we do it right, which we are doing. 

  <<Robert, under Richard's above clarification of the GPL, I respectfully
  submit my request for the 3.10 sources, which you described as "the
  current product release", that most of your HPUX customers have
  switched to.
  >>

  We have not distributed anythying to you (Ronald COle), therefore we
  do not owe you anything under the GPL.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole said

<<I'd recommend that you find some other license agreement that would
prevent someone from enhancing your code and then engaging in the
following exercise of the "letter of the law":
>>


Ronald complains that Richard Stallman has watered down things in the GPL
and that it does not place sufficient restrictions on people (an uncommon
complaint, the opposite of the usual one). Like many people, Ronald
started this thread under the incorrect impression that the GPL forces
you to distribute code if you make modifications.

One can imagine such a license agreement, but I don't think it would be
workable in practice, how can you force someone to distribute something?

You could also have a license that said if you distributed it to anyone
you must distribute it to everyone, but that seems equally unworkable
in practice.

I am not sure that either of these would be an iomprovement from any point
of view, since they would remove too much personal freedom. if you pick
something up off the net with sources, the whole idea is that you can
fiddle freely with it for your own use. Saying that you had to distribute
it to the world if you modified it would place an intolerable burden and
for many people be equivalent to saying you cannot modify it.

Similarly, if you want to give your friend what you have done, the GPL
makes you give your friend the source on request, but certainly does NOT
mean you have to undertake the burden of general distribution.

Of course what Ronald COle wants is that we should be forced to give him
whatever we do as soon as we do it. Sorry, the GPL does not require this,
and it is not something that is going to happen. (By the way, if you are
a bit confused by his quoted text, it is from personal email that he is
reposting without the full context -- the full context was messages from
Richard Stallman confirming that Ronald's attempted interpretation of the
GPL was mistaken).

Anyway, here is how we do things at ACT, just so it is clear to people.


There are three kinds of versions of GNAT

First. The public versions. We only make versions public when they have been
in reasonably wide use for a while, so that any problems with installation,
or any other serious problems that have crept by our own procedures are
minimized. These public versions are always distributed *with* sources.
We package the objects and sources separately, since so many people want
to pick up only the objects, and the net does not have infinite bandwidth.
All mirror sites should always pick up both the objects and sources, so that
the sources are always available to anyone getting the objects.


Second. Interim releases for customers. These are fully tested internally
using the ACVC suite, our own regression suite, and also more recently the
DEC test suite (or rather selections from it that are relevant to 
implementations other than the VMS one -- the VMS implementations of course
use the whole DEC test suite). They are clearly not widely used when we
first release them, but they are fully supported. Many of our customers move
to these releases pretty rapidly, since they contain new features and new
bug fixes that are perceived as being worth the possible disruption of moving
to a new release. It is these interim releases which eventually later on
become public releases. Like the public releases, we release these with
sources, so that any customer obtaining the objects can also obtain the
sources. These are distributed via the GNAT FTP site, and are not available
from us to other than our customers. It is one of these releases that
Ronald has been demanding that we send him, but he will have to wait until
it is publicly released to get it from us (or become a customer).

Third. Wavefront releases. We make these available to customers on a need
basis (the typical situation is that a new feature or bug fix is urgent
enough that some specific customer is willing to switch to the latest
development version that has the needed feature of fix). These versions
have also been run through the ACVC tests and regression tests, but do
not have the level of internal use or confidence that we have in interim
releases. Furthermore, we expect them to be replaced by the next interim
release, and do not guarantee long term support for the wavefront releases.
These wavefront releases are distributed using option (b) in the GPL. That
is we provide objects only, with an offer to provide the sources on CD ROM
for a copying charge. 

I certainly understand that Ronald would like to get everything we do
free as soon as we do it, but it is not the way we work. In fact we do
not think it would be helpful for the Ada community if there were a new
public version of GNAT three times a week, it would end up causing huge
confusion and version chaos.

The current version situation with GNAT is as follows

Latest public release: 3.09 for most targets. A notable exception is DOS,
where the latest public release is 3.07. There currently is no working
3.09 for DOS. There was a problem with tasking (having to do with the
changes we made to separate out a non-tasking version of delay, which in
retrospect was a mistake). We are hoping to remedy this and create a
DOS 3.10, but we are not committing to this!

latest interim customer release: 3.10a. This is in use at many sites,
and has been verified as being in good shape by a number of critical
customers including SGI and OIS (who has the latest version of their
products working with 3.10a now). So it seems in pretty good shape.

We expect a 3.10b fairly soon which will have very extensive improvements
to the debugging capabilities of GDB. 

A public release of 3.10 will probably be based on 3.10b. We do not
have a definite schedule for this release yet.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Olivier Galibert]

In article <dewar.867497844@merv>, Robert Dewar wrote:
>[...]
>There are three kinds of versions of GNAT
>
>[version 1 and 2 are distributed under option (a)]
>
>Third. Wavefront releases. [...]
>These wavefront releases are distributed using option (b) in the GPL. That
>is we provide objects only, with an offer to provide the sources on CD ROM
>for a copying charge. 

Option (b) says :
    b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
    years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
    cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
    machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
    distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
    customarily used for software interchange; or,

i.e., this says "any third party". This includes Richard Cole, doesn't it ?

  OG.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

I said

<<Also, note that actually the release that Ronald Cole wanted was 3.10a,           
which is offered under scheme (a), i.e. the sources are distributed                 
with the binaries, not under scheme (b) which we only use for                       
wavefronts. Wavefronts are distributed on a very limited basis by us,               
we do not even make them generally available to customers. We only                  
make them available selectively when it is absolutely necessary to fix              
a particular customer problem.                                                      
>>                                                                                  
                                                                                    
                                                                                    
Actually 3.10a is a very good example of why we hold off on making public           
releases. One of the new features in 3.10a is a more accurate treatment             
of delay statements and other details of the tasking implemen                       
tation. This works fine, but has a side effect that the tasking runtime
is always loaded for almost all non-tasking programs. 

Now this does not affect our customers in general, since nearly all of
them are using tasking in any case, or at any rate are building very large
programs where this is not a major factor.

However, we we know from many posts in this group, keeping student type
program executables small is pretty critical for a lot of the users of
the public version.

Consequently, we consider fixing this a prerequisite for the public release,
and indeed when 3.10 is released publicly, it will fix this problem. The fix
is not trivial, but we see it as important enough of an issue to hold the
public release for.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

And now back to work, it so happens that I am busy working on precisely
this problem right now, as well as getting better debugging support in
place using gdb (we are very close to having gdb in Ada mode have 100%
knowledge about Ada data structures, including packed arrays, variant
records, variable length components depending on discriminants etc).

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Jon S Anthony]

In article <dewar.867557676@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:


<Various things about ACT release cycles and rationales that I pretty
much completely agree with>

And then the really interesting bit:

> as well as getting better debugging support in place using gdb (we
> are very close to having gdb in Ada mode have 100% knowledge about
> Ada data structures, including packed arrays, variant records,
> variable length components depending on discriminants etc).


This sounds great.  One thing I've wondered about wrt gdb for Ada: is
it reasonable to think that binaries of this could be placed out with
those of GNAT?  Or is this an unreasonable burden?

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
OMI, Belmont, MA 02178
617.484.3383
"Nightmares - Ha!  The way my life's been going lately,
 Who'd notice?"  -- Londo Mollari

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Jon asks

<<This sounds great.  One thing I've wondered about wrt gdb for Ada: is
it reasonable to think that binaries of this could be placed out with
those of GNAT?  Or is this an unreasonable burden?
>>

This is a very reasonable suggestion! It would help a lot of peoplke to
be easily able to get binaries of gdb and the other tools. The first step
is for us to create a nicely packaged set of binaries for the tools for
our customers. Then when we complete that task, the general public will
be the eventual beneficiary :-)

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> complaint, the opposite of the usual one). Like many people, Ronald
> started this thread under the incorrect impression that the GPL forces
> you to distribute code if you make modifications.

Not exactly true.  My complaint is that once you distribute to
person-A, the GPL permits you to say "no" to requests from persons-B,
-C, -D, ad nausium.  Have you forgotten what it was Stallman wrote to
both of us?  I'll repeat it, since it bears repeating:

  Thus, there's no requirement to make a public announcement of a source
  release to accompany the binary release, but you may have to provide
  the sources to any number of people other than those who got the
  binary directly from you, if they request it.

Clearly, if this is Stallman's intention, he failed to embody it
within the GPL.  I hope I can convince Richard to remedy this.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald said

<<Not exactly true.  My complaint is that once you distribute to
person-A, the GPL permits you to say "no" to requests from persons-B,
-C, -D, ad nausium.  Have you forgotten what it was Stallman wrote to
both of us?  I'll repeat it, since it bears repeating:

  Thus, there's no requirement to make a public announcement of a source
  release to accompany the binary release, but you may have to provide
  the sources to any number of people other than those who got the
  binary directly from you, if they request it.

Clearly, if this is Stallman's intention, he failed to embody it
within the GPL.  I hope I can convince Richard to remedy this.
<<


This refers to case b) where the sources are not distributed with the
biarnies, but instead a written offer is made to provide the sources.
Note the "directly" in Richard's paragraph. The idea is that if the
sources are provided by method b), then anyone receiving a copy of
the binaries should receive a copy of the written offer as well,
and may excercise it.

I don't think Richard forgot anything. I think the GPL does exactly
what he intends, and it makes perfect sense (and I have forgotten
nothing -- remember I understood this *before* this thread started :-)

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Watts]

In article <dewar.867497844@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Ronald Cole said
>
><<I'd recommend that you find some other license agreement that would
>prevent someone from enhancing your code and then engaging in the
>following exercise of the "letter of the law":
>>>
>
>
[snip]
>
>Anyway, here is how we do things at ACT, just so it is clear to people.
>
>
>There are three kinds of versions of GNAT
[snip]

 Hmmm.. interesting. How would you cope with a customer who distributes
interim or wavefront releases to the world, possibly for a fee approaching
 your own ? As I see it, if you tried to restrict service to customers
who didn't redistribute the code you shipped them, you might be open
to a suit for constructive licensing ? How does the FSF feel about
this ?


[snip]


Richard.
[ who will now undoubtedly be flamed by absolutely everyone ... :-( ]
-- 
SAY AGAIN STOP IS USENET DEAD OR DECEASED STOP
The University of Cambridge can't have these opinions even if it wants them.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5pb8gf$j4m@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> rrw1000@cus.cam.ac.uk (Richard Watts) writes:
> Hmmm.. interesting. How would you cope with a customer who distributes
>interim or wavefront releases to the world, possibly for a fee approaching
> your own ? As I see it, if you tried to restrict service to customers
>who didn't redistribute the code you shipped them, you might be open
>to a suit for constructive licensing ? How does the FSF feel about
>this ?

This hasn't happened with GNAT and, for a number of reasons, isn't
very likely to.  It *has* happened with GCC snapshots distributed
by the FSF and in those cases the person was no longer on the list
to obtain the snapshots.  There is no obligation to distribute
to anybody.

You are perhaps correct that a formal policy of not giving future
releases to people who've redistributed in the past might violate at
least the spirit of the GPL, but nobody has proposed doing that.  The
point is that FSF chooses to give GCC snapshots to the people whom it
believes will best help the GCC project and ACT has customers who they
believe have needs consistent with the support services offered.  ACT
has no obligation to accept as a customer somebody who has a different
model of what support is than ACT and the FSF has no obligation to
distribute GCC snapshots to somebody who isn't helping the GCC project.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Steve Peltz]

In article <5pbd6q$8si$1@news.nyu.edu>,
Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>You are perhaps correct that a formal policy of not giving future
>releases to people who've redistributed in the past might violate at
>least the spirit of the GPL, but nobody has proposed doing that.  The

I'm not sure what you're saying. Restricting the rights of your customers
to pass on source code to someone else is certainly against both the
spirit and letter of the GPL. Threatening to drop them as a customer
if they do so is well within the meaning of "restrict". That you'd even
suggest that they shouldn't, much less threaten them with retaliation,
is disturbing.

Of course, your customers are certainly within their rights to refuse to
pass it on. However, that should be for their own reasons, not because
they are being coerced by you.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5ph4g5$sbs$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> peltz@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes:
>In article <5pbd6q$8si$1@news.nyu.edu>,
>Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>You are perhaps correct that a formal policy of not giving future
>>releases to people who've redistributed in the past might violate at
>>least the spirit of the GPL, but nobody has proposed doing that.  The
>
>I'm not sure what you're saying. Restricting the rights of your customers
>to pass on source code to someone else is certainly against both the
>spirit and letter of the GPL. Threatening to drop them as a customer
>if they do so is well within the meaning of "restrict".

You seem to have missed the "nobody has proposed doing that" above.

>That you'd even suggest that they shouldn't,

There's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that it's harmful
to the GNAT community for pre-releases to be widely distributed.  The
FSF itself (and Richard Stallman personally) has an extremely strong
similar view about pre-releases of GCC.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Olivier Galibert]

In article <5pim4l$5m3$1@news.nyu.edu>, Richard Kenner wrote:
>There's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that it's harmful
>to the GNAT community for pre-releases to be widely distributed.  The
>FSF itself (and Richard Stallman personally) has an extremely strong
>similar view about pre-releases of GCC.

With the immediate side effect that most people won't even try to fix
bugs which may already have been fixed. And most of the time don't even
bother to report them because of the "I'll try again in 6 months with
the new release and then I'll see" effect.

I know, I'm one of them.

  OG.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <slrn5rpshu.fcf.Olivier.Galibert@iria.mines.u-nancy.fr> Olivier.Galibert@mines.u-nancy.fr (Olivier Galibert) writes:
>In article <5pim4l$5m3$1@news.nyu.edu>, Richard Kenner wrote:
>>There's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that it's harmful
>>to the GNAT community for pre-releases to be widely distributed.  The
>>FSF itself (and Richard Stallman personally) has an extremely strong
>>similar view about pre-releases of GCC.
>
>With the immediate side effect that most people won't even try to fix
>bugs which may already have been fixed. And most of the time don't even
>bother to report them because of the "I'll try again in 6 months with
>the new release and then I'll see" effect.

This isn't a prudent course of action, since most bugs on a mature
program such as GCC tend to be ones that have *not* already been
discovered.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Bill Gribble]

kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:
> This isn't a prudent course of action, since most bugs on a mature
> program such as GCC tend to be ones that have *not* already been
> discovered.

gcc isn't a good example for your argument... IMO most of the bugs in
gcc are well-known ones in the immature parts of the program (the c++
parts, in gcc's case) rather than undiscovered ones (of which I'm sure
there are still plenty) in the more-mature parts.

Bill Gribble

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2301 bytes --]


kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:

> In article <slrn5rpshu.fcf.Olivier.Galibert@iria.mines.u-nancy.fr> Olivier.Galibert@mines.u-nancy.fr (Olivier Galibert) writes:
> >In article <5pim4l$5m3$1@news.nyu.edu>, Richard Kenner wrote:
> >>There's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that it's harmful
> >>to the GNAT community for pre-releases to be widely distributed.  The
> >>FSF itself (and Richard Stallman personally) has an extremely strong
> >>similar view about pre-releases of GCC.
> >
> >With the immediate side effect that most people won't even try to fix
> >bugs which may already have been fixed. And most of the time don't even
> >bother to report them because of the "I'll try again in 6 months with
> >the new release and then I'll see" effect.
> 
> This isn't a prudent course of action, since most bugs on a mature
> program such as GCC tend to be ones that have *not* already been
> discovered.

With all due respect, please look at the bug report data base.  More
than half of the bugs I reported since gcc 2.5.something are still
pending correction.  It might well be that they have been fixed for
years now, but the last major release of gcc (2.7.0) was made more
than two years ago.

Actually, for a few of them I got a message, I believe some time last
year, "this will be fixed in 2.8.0".

Considering the amount of bug reports piled up for gcc-2.7 already,
when gcc-2.8.0 is supposed to be vastly overhauled in quite a few
areas, I don't think it actually very useful anymore to write bug
reports for a software which has undergone major changes in the last
few years.

Note that this applies largely to the g++ frontend which has been
under the heaviest changes in the last few years.  The backend,
fortunately, is somewhat more stable.  I got it to produce illegal
code in some of my bug reports as well, but it might have got fed bad
information from the C++ frontend.

So if you manage to get bad code or error messages or so from
compiling ANSI C, or perhaps Ada, a bug report might not be as
hopeless as for g++.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m2vi2kjsu9.fsf@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> David Kastrup <dak@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:
>With all due respect, please look at the bug report data base.  More
>than half of the bugs I reported since gcc 2.5.something are still
>pending correction.  It might well be that they have been fixed for
>years now, but the last major release of gcc (2.7.0) was made more
>than two years ago.

No, under two years ago, but there presently is a major gap.

But I'm not sure I see what your comment above has to do with your
original claim, which was that many bugs are reported by different
people.

>Note that this applies largely to the g++ frontend which has been
>under the heaviest changes in the last few years.  The backend,
>fortunately, is somewhat more stable. 

But that's what I was talking about.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

David says

<<

Note that this applies largely to the g++ frontend which has been

under the heaviest changes in the last few years.  The backend,

fortunately, is somewhat more stable.  I got it to produce illegal

code in some of my bug reports as well, but it might have got fed bad

information from the C++ frontend.>>

And indeed, Richard's comment was specifically about the backend, he should have said so, 
but he tends to assume that gcc means the part he takes care of :-)

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <dewar.868481375@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>And indeed, Richard's comment was specifically about the backend, he should
>have said so, but he tends to assume that gcc means the part he takes
>care of :-)

Actually, the term "gcc" does indeed refer to just the language-independent
backend, plus the C (and perhaps Objective-C) front ends.  The C++ front
end is referred to as "g++" and has a separate bug reporting address and
maintainers.

It's no more a part of GCC than GNAT or the Fortran front ends.  It's
likely that g++ will be distributed as a separate package in GCC 2.8.0.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[user]

In article <5pmg6e$nai$1@Venus.mcs.net>, Leslie Mikesell wrote:
>Hmmm, so if it is in your best interest you can ignore the GPL mandate
>to allow unlimited redistribution if you distribute at all?  Why doesn't
>this philosophy apply to everyone else?
>

The GPL "mandates" unlimited redistribution in the sense that anyone who
gets GPL'd code can redistribute it.  But it does not require anyone to
make sure that everyone on earth and beyond has a copy. (Well unless 
you use one of those goofy options to making the source immediately
available).  

This issue has been hashed out many times in this thread.  You couldn't
possibly have missed it.


Isaac

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Leslie Mikesell]

In article <5pmiuv$2f1@camel4.mindspring.com>,
 <user@yellow.submarine.pla> wrote:
>In article <5pmg6e$nai$1@Venus.mcs.net>, Leslie Mikesell wrote:
>>Hmmm, so if it is in your best interest you can ignore the GPL mandate
>>to allow unlimited redistribution if you distribute at all?  Why doesn't
>>this philosophy apply to everyone else?
>>
>
>The GPL "mandates" unlimited redistribution in the sense that anyone who
>gets GPL'd code can redistribute it.  But it does not require anyone to
>make sure that everyone on earth and beyond has a copy. (Well unless 
>you use one of those goofy options to making the source immediately
>available).  
>
>This issue has been hashed out many times in this thread.  You couldn't
>possibly have missed it.

No, but usually the discussion is in the context of whether you have
to distribute changes at all, which of course is not required.  However
this time the issue seems to be about distributing among a small
circle of friends with at least an implicit agreement that none will
distribute additional copies.  I fail to see any philosophical difference
between this and selling copies with a contractual requirement not
to redistribute. 

Les Mikesell
  les@mcs.com

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Paul Eggert]

les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) writes:

> this time the issue seems to be about distributing among a small
> circle of friends with at least an implicit agreement that none will
> distribute additional copies.  I fail to see any philosophical difference
> between this and selling copies with a contractual requirement not
> to redistribute. 

Your philosophy doesn't distinguish between friendship and contracts?
Wow.  No wonder you're confused!

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Leslie Mikesell]

In article <5pndb9$4mi$1@shade.twinsun.com>,
Paul Eggert <eggert@twinsun.com> wrote:
>les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>
>> this time the issue seems to be about distributing among a small
>> circle of friends with at least an implicit agreement that none will
>> distribute additional copies.  I fail to see any philosophical difference
>> between this and selling copies with a contractual requirement not
>> to redistribute. 
>
>Your philosophy doesn't distinguish between friendship and contracts?
>Wow.  No wonder you're confused!

Time passes, management changes, the friends you thought you were
dealing with aren't there any more....  You may be confused someday
too.

Les Mikesell
  les@mcs.com

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[user]

In article <5pn2h2$sjg$1@Venus.mcs.net>, Leslie Mikesell wrote:
>No, but usually the discussion is in the context of whether you have
>to distribute changes at all, which of course is not required.  However
>this time the issue seems to be about distributing among a small
>circle of friends with at least an implicit agreement that none will
>distribute additional copies.  I fail to see any philosophical difference
>between this and selling copies with a contractual requirement not
>to redistribute. 
>

The philosophical difference is in whether the circle of friends are
electing not to redistribute, or whether they have been coerced.  It
may be impossible for an outsider to know until we see the consequences 
of breaking the agreement.  It is easy to imagine situations where 
those with the code in their hands see a benefit to not redistributing
the code without any collusion or coercion from the original
distributor.  

'Course none of this gets an outside the code he wants.  In this sense
there is no difference.  I wouldn't call this philosophical though...

Isaac

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Isaac says

<<'Course none of this gets an outside the code he wants.  In this sense
there is no difference.  I wouldn't call this philosophical though...
>>

I would say "thinks he wants" rather than "he wants". What people really
want is two things:

  1. The absolutely latest and greatest version with all the latest fixes
  2. They want this version to work reliably

And that's the rub. I well remember a small group of firebrands screaming
at IBM for "delaying" the release of OS/2 version 3.0. When it was finally
released, guess what, it was the same group that was screaming at IBM for
all the bugs that they found in the 3.0 release when it finally appeared :-)

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Les says

<<No, but usually the discussion is in the context of whether you have
to distribute changes at all, which of course is not required.  However
this time the issue seems to be about distributing among a small
circle of friends with at least an implicit agreement that none will
distribute additional copies.  I fail to see any philosophical difference
between this and selling copies with a contractual requirement not
to redistribute.
>>

Effective software development requires that the scope of use and testing
of a piece of software be commensurate with the stage of maturity of the
project.

When a fix is first developed, it remains in the domain of the fixer until
he or she is reasonably confident that it is a correct fix.

Then it is propagated to the development team and other people try it
out in the context of other things that are going on.

When the team collectively thinks that a set of fixes is ready, then it
needs to go outside the team to a small selected group of users to see
if things work (a process usually called alpha or beta testing depending
on the perceived maturity of the release, really I am talking about what
I would call external alpha testing here).

Then when a release seems to be in a potentially releasable state, it
needs to be more widely tested (this is a typical beta test situation).

A product can then be initially released to a wider circle of customers,
and eventually a full release can be made.

If the requirements of the GPL made it impossible to follow this procedure,
then the GPL would in practice make it very difficult to develop reliable
software.

But the GPL in practice does NOT make it impossible to follow this
procedure. Although further distribution is always permitted, during
the early stages, those involved understand that it is not helpful to
widely distribute that which is not ready to be widely distributed.

In the case of GCC, the snapshots are available to a number of people,
but the Free Software Foundation notes that wide distribution of these
snapshopts is not helpful to the GNU project, which seems an exactly
accurate assessment, and since people perceive that it is an appropriate
assessment, they generally agree. There are some glitches, at one point
a CD ROM of the Linux distribution included the snapshots, which was
potentially highly disruptive, and some loud yellling at the people
involved went on to try to avoid this happening in the future.

Note that people's willingness to abide by the informal "do not
distribute" rules is based on their perception that the request is
reasonable, and is indeed based on a concern to avoid premature
distribution. If they felt that the request was based on a desire
to hoard software that was in fact ready for wide distribution, they
would not concur, and the redistribution would occur.

There is a huge philosophical difference between seeing distribution
restricted because a group of people agree that it is not a good idea
for the good of the project involved to distribute software prematurely,
and a situation in which distributable software is being hoarded.

Richard Stallman is adamant about the importance of free and wide
distribution of software as I think everyone knows, but he is equally
adamant that it is a bad idea for insuffiently tested snapshots to be
prematurely distributed widely, and will yell loudly at anyone who
"misbehaves" in this manner. I know that, I have been yelled at!

In the case of GNAT, our position is quite simple, our beta testing
works by having very small sets of customers get wavefront releases.
They are willing to test these out, because these beta versions fix
problems they need to get around, and they are willing to risk the
instability of a new version to get around their problem. In my
previous message, I outlined the internal QA testing we do to try
to minimize the possibilities of such instabilities.

When we have something that we feel is potentially ready for release,
we distribute it more widely to our supported customers. And more of
them pick it up. That actually is a relatively new procedure for us,
and resulted recently in the internal prerelease designated 4.10a.

Well what's the result? In fact 4.10a is looking good, BUT there are
a couple of glitches that have not proved a problem for our customers
except in one or two cases, but which absolutely MUST be fixed before
a full public release of the 3.10 (oops I mean 3.10 when I mention
4.10 anywhere above). We are now working towards a 3.10b. We will
make this available to our customers again, and if it is glitch
free, then release it publicly.

As I noted in a previous post, releasing free software is actually
more difficult than releasing proprietary software. In the latter case,
the user community is self limiting to those who are willingf to shell
out the money, you have a chance to track the users, and most importantly,
you provide at least some kind of support.

In the case of free software releases of GNAT made by ACT, the new software
is immediately used by tens of thousands of users, we have no idea who is
using it, and we cannot provide support to those who are using it.

That means that we have to be SUPER sure, to the best of our abilities,
that the release is glitch free. We are determined to work carefully
towards this goal, and will not release 3.10 before we think it is 
ready, no matter how loud Ronald and others may yell. Looking back,
if we have made release mistakes it has been on the side of releasing
too early (in particular the annoying Constraint Error on syntax mistakes
in 3.04, and the loader problems in the 3.09 NT come to mind -- the
latter is actually instructive, we slightly rushed the 3.09 NT, to get
out a CD ROM for STC. Unfortunately, there is now way to cut the CD ROM
via the PAL without making the version public, so we were pushed into
releasing this a little earlier than we wanted. Now 3.09NT has proved
useful to many many people, but it has also caused some unnecessary
frustration).

It is our goal to avoid such problems in the future. If this annoys some
enthusiasts who are panting for the latest version, I am sorry, but I
think it is more important to get solid releases, than to get less solid
stuff earlier. 

Robert Dewar

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5pn2h2$sjg$1@Venus.mcs.net> les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>No, but usually the discussion is in the context of whether you have
>to distribute changes at all, which of course is not required.  However
>this time the issue seems to be about distributing among a small
>circle of friends with at least an implicit agreement that none will
>distribute additional copies.  I fail to see any philosophical difference
>between this and selling copies with a contractual requirement not
>to redistribute. 

The difference is that the redistribution is being forgone
*voluntarily*, not by some requirement.  That's a very big difference.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Les said

<<Hmmm, so if it is in your best interest you can ignore the GPL mandate
to allow unlimited redistribution if you distribute at all?  Why doesn't
this philosophy apply to everyone else?
>>

The GPL is not a mandate, or a piece of philosophy, it is a legal contract
in the form of a license, that allows people to do certain things with
the code. You certainly cannot ignore this contract, and if you are
dealing with the GPL, you must follow the letter of this contract
exactly. No one has suggested otherwise. 

You certainly cannot prevent unlimited redistribution of anything you
distribute that is subject to the GPL. No one has suggested that you can.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5pmg6e$nai$1@Venus.mcs.net> les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>>There's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that it's harmful
>>to the GNAT community for pre-releases to be widely distributed.  The
>>FSF itself (and Richard Stallman personally) has an extremely strong
>>similar view about pre-releases of GCC.
>
>Hmmm, so if it is in your best interest you can ignore the GPL mandate
>to allow unlimited redistribution if you distribute at all?  Why doesn't
>this philosophy apply to everyone else?

Pointing out that something is harmful is not the same as disallowing it!
The difference is quite fundmanental and is similar to the distinction
between something being illegal or merely rude.

As an example of this distinction, I believe that people should not use
vulgarities as part of discussions because most people consider that rude.
But I certainly don't feel that doing so should be illegal.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Steve Peltz]

In article <5pim4l$5m3$1@news.nyu.edu>,
Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>In article <5ph4g5$sbs$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> peltz@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes:
>>In article <5pbd6q$8si$1@news.nyu.edu>,
>>Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>You are perhaps correct that a formal policy of not giving future
>>>releases to people who've redistributed in the past might violate at
>>>least the spirit of the GPL, but nobody has proposed doing that.  The
>>
>>I'm not sure what you're saying. Restricting the rights of your customers
>>to pass on source code to someone else is certainly against both the
>>spirit and letter of the GPL. Threatening to drop them as a customer
>>if they do so is well within the meaning of "restrict".
>
>You seem to have missed the "nobody has proposed doing that" above.

Nobody has proposed a FORMAL policy. There's a strong implication in
several earlier responses indicating that there is an informal policy of
doing just that: "we don't have to do business with people who distribute
it ... wink wink". I don't object to ASKING people to not distribute it,
but threatening them with retaliation if they do seems to be violating
the letter and the spirit of the GPL. I'm surprised to hear that the FSF
appears to be doing the same thing! I'd always thought that if I looked
for it, I could get the absolutely latest, untested, broken version of
GCC, and that if I used it it would probably not work. I don't see why
that's any worse than having a bug that I try to fix, distribute patches
to other people having the problem, and then find out that I fixed it
the wrong way, or in a way that is going to cause problems with later
"official" patches or updates. In fact, isn't that one of the major
arguments the FSF is always defending against ("but if we distribute
sources to our product, people will make changes to it and may break
it or add incompatibilities")? I don't understand why one argument is
valid and the other is not.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5ptv7r$4e2$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> peltz@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes:
>Nobody has proposed a FORMAL policy. There's a strong implication in
>several earlier responses indicating that there is an informal policy of
>doing just that: "we don't have to do business with people who distribute
>it ... wink wink". I don't object to ASKING people to not distribute it,
>but threatening them with retaliation if they do seems to be violating
>the letter and the spirit of the GPL.

Why do you consider not distributing things to them in the future to
be "retaliation"?  That's a biased view of the situation.  The people
who receive GCC snapshots are those who are helping in the development
process.  They are not receiving the snapshots as some sort of
"reward" or "prize", but instead to assist in the development effort.

If their actions, be they technical or non-technical, indicate they no
longer want to be part of that effort, they will no longer be.

>I'd always thought that if I looked for it, I could get the absolutely
>latest, untested, broken version of GCC, and that if I used it it would
>probably not work. I don't see why that's any worse than having a bug
>that I try to fix, distribute patches to other people having the problem,
>and then find out that I fixed it the wrong way, or in a way that is
>going to cause problems with later "official" patches or updates.

It is very close to the same.  That's why both are activities that
are discouraged.  It's very important for there to be a clear set of
"official" and tested sources.  That way, there's never a confusion
in the user community over what to use.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Steve Peltz]

In article <5pu5va$64o$1@news.nyu.edu>,
Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Why do you consider not distributing things to them in the future to
>be "retaliation"?  That's a biased view of the situation.  The people
>who receive GCC snapshots are those who are helping in the development
>process.  They are not receiving the snapshots as some sort of
>"reward" or "prize", but instead to assist in the development effort.
>
>If their actions, be they technical or non-technical, indicate they no
>longer want to be part of that effort, they will no longer be.

So, although you can't legally restrict someone from distributing a modified
version of a GPLed program, you can still take any other action against them
that you can get away with if they do distribute it? Can you write a
maintenance contract that automatically terminates (without refund of any
money) if they redistribute it, or can you only choose to not renew the
contract in the future?

Perhaps when you sell an object copy, you "offer" the source to your client,
but with the understanding that if they actually take it, you'll immediately
terminate all support for it. Then, since they don't have the source, they
can't redistribute the binary.

Now, I realize that in this particular case, you will eventually distribute
the program in all its GPLed glory, and I even sympathize and agree with
your reasons for delaying release; in the case of the FSF and GCC, I even
agree that they have the legal right, since they hold the copyright on
everything in that package, and can thus distribute it under whatever
terms they wish, as well as releasing it under the GPL at such time as
they wish to. However, it doesn't seem to fit with the ideals of the
GPL and FSF.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5qdof6$iav$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> peltz@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes:
>So, although you can't legally restrict someone from distributing a modified
>version of a GPLed program, you can still take any other action against them
>that you can get away with if they do distribute it? Can you write a
>maintenance contract that automatically terminates (without refund of any
>money) if they redistribute it, or can you only choose to not renew the
>contract in the future?

The only way question at the edge, like that one, can be answered, is
by actually litigating it in court.  However, from a practical
perspective, what most matters is what the copyright holder feels
is appropriate, since if they feel it appropriate, they won't sue.

Since the cases we are talking about of asking people not to redistribute
are based on the desire to prevent buggy code from getting out there,
it is consistent with the best interests of the FSF and thus they
would not sue.

If this were done in some other context (i.e., where the issue was
not to delay distibution until a release was ready but to use this
sort of external arrangement to prevent redistribution at all), I 
wouldn't want to try to predict which way it would go; it would
strongly depend on what the "other action" would be.  I doubt that
merely refusing to renew a maintenance contract would be sufficient
since that's something you do not need a reason to do.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Steve Peltz says

<<Now, I realize that in this particular case, you will eventually distribute
the program in all its GPLed glory, and I even sympathize and agree with
your reasons for delaying release; in the case of the FSF and GCC, I even
agree that they have the legal right, since they hold the copyright on
everything in that package, and can thus distribute it under whatever
terms they wish, as well as releasing it under the GPL at such time as
they wish to. However, it doesn't seem to fit with the ideals of the
GPL and FSF.
>>


The GPL is a legal contract. One cannot easily enforce ideals with a contract,
and ultimately the GPL does not guarantee anyones ideals or morals. It does
make a very definite guarantee that if you get a given object you can get
the corresponding source.

You worry a lot about future versions, but notice there is nothing in the
GPL that obliges the author to stick with the GPL in future versions. It
is quite in accord with the terms of this license for the author to offer
version 1 of the system under the GPL, and then make vesion 2 entirely
propriatery -- the author does not surrender this right by using the GPL.
Whether that correspondes with your perception of ideals, who knows?

In practice, the GPL can be used in a wide variety of manners, subject to
the basic guarantee of not ending up with a program where you cannot
redistribute or cannot obtain sources.

As I often have pointed out, there is no requirement whatsoever that we
do "eventually distribute the program .... [publicly]". The GPL in no
way suggests that we should, it is something we choose to do for reasons
other than GPL requirements.

P.S. It is interesting that in the case of GNAT, the option of taking
future versions private rests with the original copyright holder, NYU,
and the current copyright holder, FSF. Neither is likely to excercise
this right, and it would not mean much if they did, since we would
continue to develop the current version, and continue to make it publicly
available!

P.P.S. 3.10 is coming along quite nicely, and we are working towards an
early general release (for one thing, we have major improvements planned
for post 3.10, and we want to get 3.10 out before we introduce any more
earthquakes :-)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

peltz@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes:
> However, it doesn't seem to fit with the ideals of the
> GPL and FSF.

You may actually be surprised at what Stallman's ideals actually are!
I thought as you did, and pressed Richard about the altruism he
describes in his GNU Manifesto.  He told me that "[I was] interpreting
what [he] wrote in a way that is not [his] interpretation."  I then
asked him to explain just exactly how he got from "if I like a program
I must share it with other people who like it" to "each person should
be free to decide who not to give a copy to".  He never bothered to
reply.  In light of this statement from the Manifesto "the desire to
be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world
in general of all or part of that creativity," I think he sold out on
his principles.

Don't trust anybody over thirty...  ;)

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole says

<<Ronald Cole said

<<You may actually be surprised at what Stallman's ideals actually are!
I thought as you did, and pressed Richard about the altruism he
describes in his GNU Manifesto.  He told me that "[I was] interpreting
what [he] wrote in a way that is not [his] interpretation."  I then
asked him to explain just exactly how he got from "if I like a program
I must share it with other people who like it" to "each person should
be free to decide who not to give a copy to".  He never bothered to
reply.  In light of this statement from the Manifesto "the desire to
be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world
in general of all or part of that creativity," I think he sold out on
his principles.
>>



Nope, I just think you don't understand things very well, even after
all this discussion. You apparently think that people should be forced
(by threat of fines? jail? ...?) to give you their software. Sorry,
the world is not like that, and the GPL *definitely* does not have this
in mind. 

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Nope, I just think you don't understand things very well, even after
> all this discussion. You apparently think that people should be forced
> (by threat of fines? jail? ...?) to give you their software. Sorry,
> the world is not like that, and the GPL *definitely* does not have this
> in mind. 

This just shows that you still don't understand my argument.  I'll spell
it out for you yet again...

According to the Manifesto, Stallman had to write GNU so that he could
share it with other people who liked it *and* so that everyone would
be able to obtain good system software free.  Stallman also said that
he is required to consider it wrong for one to hoard information.  I
believe the GPL should embody these principles because no one is
forced to use GNU software.  If you received and modified GNU
software, you shouldn't be required to share it, *unless* you have
engaged in the act of "distribution".

Once you have distributed, being selective about further distributions
is indistinguishable from "hoarding", and I believe Stallman is
morally bound to consider it wrong (assuming he actually meant what
he wrote in the Manifesto).

I've stated that I don't believe making snapshots available for
testing to be "distributing".  However, you've previously posted that
3.10 is the latest "production release" of GNAT and that ACT's
customers have been enjoying it for quite a while.  *That*, in my
opinion, is the act of "distributing".

You are free to believe that being selective in distributing is not
tantamount to hoarding, but you have yet to provide an argument to
support that belief.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Isaac]

In article <m2u3hof1w3.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>, Ronald Cole wrote:
>3.10 is the latest "production release" of GNAT and that ACT's
>customers have been enjoying it for quite a while.  *That*, in my
>opinion, is the act of "distributing".
>

I think everyone understands your position, but I think it has unpalatable
consequences.  You're position leads to the conclusion that if I give GPL'd
code to someone, I have to be personally responsible for making sure
that everyone on earth who wants it gets it.  This is an unreasonable
burden in my opinion.  This would be enough to make sure no one in their
right mind distributed.

Even if I were to accept your definition of hoarding (and it does sound
reasonable), I think any position that requires me to develop the 
above distribution system is unreasonable.  Therefore either the 
Manifesto is unreasonable, or it does not intend what you say.

If the 3.10 is a production release, and ACT's customers are in any way
obligated not to re-distribute it, I agree that that is a violation of the
GPL.

Isaac

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Leslie Mikesell]

In article <5r3dfk$891@camel4.mindspring.com>,
Isaac <Isaac@yellow.submarine.pla> wrote:

>I think everyone understands your position, but I think it has unpalatable
>consequences.  You're position leads to the conclusion that if I give GPL'd
>code to someone, I have to be personally responsible for making sure
>that everyone on earth who wants it gets it.

Nobody said that. You are required to allow unrestricted redistribution,
not to promote it.  However, I don't see how distributing only to people 
who agree not to redistribute can be reconciled with that requirement.

>This is an unreasonable
>burden in my opinion.  This would be enough to make sure no one in their
>right mind distributed.

Has anyone accused the GPL of being reasonable?

>Even if I were to accept your definition of hoarding (and it does sound
>reasonable), I think any position that requires me to develop the 
>above distribution system is unreasonable.

Does that matter?

>If the 3.10 is a production release, and ACT's customers are in any way
>obligated not to re-distribute it, I agree that that is a violation of the
>GPL.

Perhaps I missed something.  Could you point out the portion of the
GPL that distinguishes between production releases and other code?

Les Mikesell
  les@mcs.com

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Isaac]

In article <5r40u6$qun$1@Venus.mcs.net>, Leslie Mikesell wrote:
>In article <5r3madfk$891@camel4.mindspring.com>,
>Isaac <Isaac@yellow.submarine.pla> wrote:
>
>>This is an unreasonable
>>burden in my opinion.  This would be enough to make sure no one in their
>>right mind distributed.
>
>Has anyone accused the GPL of being reasonable?
>

The GPL is reasonable with respect to not forcing people to become full
time distributors just because they give their buds some code.  You of 
course are using the word 'reasonable' in another context.

>>Even if I were to accept your definition of hoarding (and it does sound
>>reasonable), I think any position that requires me to develop the 
>>above distribution system is unreasonable.
>
>Does that matter?
>

Maybe not, but the GPL and I agree on this point.

>Perhaps I missed something.  Could you point out the portion of the
>GPL that distinguishes between production releases and other code?
>
Sigh.  The GPL of course makes no such distinction.

The difference is strictly in the motivation of the people who get the
non production code.   It is easy to postulate a non selfish, non 
hoarding reason for people not to re-distribute possibly buggy code
in either binary or source fashion.  These people might simply agree 
that limited distribution beta testing is a good thing.  I myself feel 
this way.  The poster I was responding to appeared to believe this as 
well.  Obviously this motivation would not apply to production code.

If none of the current holders want to re-distribute the code, the only
possible point of contention with respect to the GPL is whether they
are being coerced.  There are other means of motivating people other than
coercing or restricting them.  Can you think of any?

Isaac (who just hates rhetorical questions)

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[W. Wesley Groleau x4923]

Isaac wrote:
> The difference is strictly in the motivation of the people who get the
> non production code.   It is easy to postulate a non selfish, non
> hoarding reason for people not to re-distribute possibly buggy code
> in either binary or source fashion.  These people might simply agree
> that limited distribution beta testing is a good thing.  I myself feel
> this way.  The poster I was responding to appeared to believe this as
> well.  

The poster you were responding thinks that he is entitled either to 
free hand-holding in trying to duplicate the build process of the
software authors, or to get on demand the latest beta version that 
the authors provide to their customers (who actually pay for the
privilege of being beta testers for the rest of us).  When ACT
legitimately declined these demands, he went on a one-man flame war 
against them.  Last I heard, 3.10 is still considered such a beta
version and will be public as soon as ACT thinks it has been 
proven stable.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

"W. Wesley Groleau x4923" <wwgrol@pseserv3.fw.hac.com> writes:
> The poster you were responding thinks that he is entitled either to 
> free hand-holding in trying to duplicate the build process of the
> software authors, or to get on demand the latest beta version that 
> the authors provide to their customers (who actually pay for the
> privilege of being beta testers for the rest of us).  When ACT
> legitimately declined these demands, he went on a one-man flame war 
> against them.  Last I heard, 3.10 is still considered such a beta
> version and will be public as soon as ACT thinks it has been 
> proven stable.

Please learn to follow a thread.  Everything necessary to debunk
your presentation of "facts" is archived at DejaNews.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Isaac said

<<If the 3.10 is a production release, and ACT's customers are in any way
obligated not to re-distribute it, I agree that that is a violation of the
GPL.
>>

Please note, that despite the possible implication of the above statement,
it is absolutely the case that ACT never violates either the spirit or
the letter of the GPL. 

As Ronald's posts have made clear, he thought the GPL made guarantees about
required distribution that simply (a) are not present, (b) are definitely
not intended to be present and (c) which would be undesirable if they
were present, since, as Isaac notes, they would discourage distribution
of free software.

Now Ronald has decided that he doesn't like the whole GPL approach. Fine,
he is free to (a) define some alternative approach and (b) distribute
his software using that approach.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Please note, that despite the possible implication of the above statement,
> it is absolutely the case that ACT never violates either the spirit or
> the letter of the GPL. 

I can always count on you, Robert, to misstate my position...

> As Ronald's posts have made clear, he thought the GPL made guarantees about
> required distribution that simply (a) are not present, (b) are definitely
> not intended to be present and (c) which would be undesirable if they
> were present, since, as Isaac notes, they would discourage distribution
> of free software.

Close, but no cigar.  I thought the Manifesto said that there would be
a license that embodied it's spirit.  I further assumed that the GPL
was that license.  Upon reading the GPL and comparing it to the
sentiments expressed in the Manifesto, I have been enlightened as to
their incongruity (i.e., the GNU system is easily obtainable, but not
because of anything contained in the GPL; rather, because Stallman
chose to make it freely available).

> Now Ronald has decided that he doesn't like the whole GPL approach. Fine,
> he is free to (a) define some alternative approach and (b) distribute
> his software using that approach.

I like the license approach as stated in the Manifesto.  I would like to
see the GPL's corrected to remove the incongruity with the Manifesto.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Joe Buck]

Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
>I like the license approach as stated in the Manifesto.  I would like to
>see the GPL's corrected to remove the incongruity with the Manifesto.

It appears that your wish is that the sentence from the Manifesto "I
consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must
share it with other people who like it." be made a mandatory requirement,
that anyone in possession of a GPLed program be forced to share the
program with anyone who asks for it, no matter what the expense.

Even if RMS agreed with your interpretation of the Manifesto, this is not
possible.  The GPL, since it is not signed by the recipient, does not have
to be accepted by the recipient.  Hence the GPL says:

> You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
> signed it.  However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
> distribute the Program or its derivative works.  These actions are
> prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.

That is, the GPL cannot force a user to do anything, except in exchange
for the right to do something s/he would otherwise not have the right
to do (modify or distribute GPLed code).  Forcing people at their own
expense to incur unbounded distribution expenses simply is not a condition
that the FSF can legally impose.  Copyright law is designed to *restrict*
the making of copies: the GPL has the power to relax this condition.
It does not have the power to force people to do anything.  (Some
shrink-wrap licenses try to do this, mandating all kinds of silly things;
as a rule they aren't enforceable).
-- 
-- Joe Buck	http://www.synopsys.com/pubs/research/people/jbuck.html

Help stamp out Internet spam: see http://spam.abuse.net/spam/

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

Isaac@yellow.submarine.pla (Isaac) writes:
> You're position leads to the conclusion that if I give GPL'd
> code to someone, I have to be personally responsible for making sure
> that everyone on earth who wants it gets it.

Not at all!  Yes, everyone on earth who wants it should be able to get
it, but that doesn't necessarily mean from you...  Unless of course
you are hoarding, in which case they can only get it from you.  I
can't think of a better way to make such persons reevaluate their
behavior with respect to the GNU Manifesto.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Isaac]

In article <m2lo2xwasi.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>, Ronald Cole wrote:
>Not at all!  Yes, everyone on earth who wants it should be able to get
>it, but that doesn't necessarily mean from you...  Unless of course
>you are hoarding, in which case they can only get it from you.  I
>can't think of a better way to make such persons reevaluate their
>behavior with respect to the GNU Manifesto.
>

So any individual person who is asked can say no correct?  So if I only
distribute the code to a few persons who also don't feel like 
re-distributing, you still might not be able to get the code.  

I think your litmus test is not very accurate.  It turns red even in
some neutral solutions.

Isaac

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[B.Stephens]

In article <5r6kbt$8g6@camel4.mindspring.com>,
  Isaac@yellow.submarine.pla (Isaac) wrote:

> So any individual person who is asked can say no correct?  So if I only
> distribute the code to a few persons who also don't feel like
> re-distributing, you still might not be able to get the code.

That's the situation, yes.  I have lots of GPLed software, about 10 CDs
of the stuff, in fact.	I am under no obligation to make any of it
available to you (although, as it happens, all of it is readily available
from other sources).  Is there any reason I should be obliged to do any
more than the GPL requires?

-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
      http://www.dejanews.com/     Search, Read, Post to Usenet

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

Isaac@yellow.submarine.pla (Isaac) writes:
> In article <m2lo2xwasi.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>, Ronald Cole wrote:
> >Not at all!  Yes, everyone on earth who wants it should be able to get
> >it, but that doesn't necessarily mean from you...  Unless of course
> >you are hoarding, in which case they can only get it from you.  I
> >can't think of a better way to make such persons reevaluate their
> >behavior with respect to the GNU Manifesto.
> 
> So any individual person who is asked can say no correct?  So if I only
> distribute the code to a few persons who also don't feel like 
> re-distributing, you still might not be able to get the code.  

If said individual is not the author, he should at least be required
to tell you where he got it.  It is the author who should not be
allowed to say no once he has engaged in the act of "distributing"
GPL'd software.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
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Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2084 bytes --]


Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

> Isaac@yellow.submarine.pla (Isaac) writes:
> > You're position leads to the conclusion that if I give GPL'd
> > code to someone, I have to be personally responsible for making sure
> > that everyone on earth who wants it gets it.
> 
> Not at all!  Yes, everyone on earth who wants it should be able to get
> it, but that doesn't necessarily mean from you...

That's what "responsible" means.  Responsibility for something does
not mean that I have to personally do it.

> Unless of course
> you are hoarding, in which case they can only get it from you.  I
> can't think of a better way to make such persons reevaluate their
> behavior with respect to the GNU Manifesto.

I can't think of anything offhand that would at once ascertain the
"availability" of GPLed code better than the current version, be
legally binding, *and* encourage people to put things under the GPL.

Don't misunderstand the GPL: it is a user licence.  It just defines
the rights and conditions for somebody *getting* that piece of
software.  The legal *owner* of the software can do anything with it,
including releasing the same or derived versions of the software only
commercially and refusing to further distribute it.  Even if the GPL
wanted to regulate the owner of the software, it hardly could.

The best you can do is sue for unfair advertising (or what it's
called) if somebody announces GPL software for getting popular or
harming competition and does not provide it.  But this is not a matter
regulated by the GPL, and cannot be.  Actually, you have to show this
is intentional, and this is pretty hard.  Which is why few bother to
persecute the hosts of ghost announcements for products never coming
up, or at vastly later times, some big players with big legal
departments issue in order to harm their competetion.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1071 bytes --]


Isaac@yellow.submarine.pla (Isaac) writes:

> Even if I were to accept your definition of hoarding (and it does sound
> reasonable), I think any position that requires me to develop the 
> above distribution system is unreasonable.  Therefore either the 
> Manifesto is unreasonable, or it does not intend what you say.

The manifesto talks about goals and ideals.  It does not talk about
the ideal means to achieve these goals.  Having GPL being a contract
demanding that you hand over software, heart and soul to the FSF is
probably not going to help much.

The way it is, GPL causes several freedoms to persist upon
redistribution of the same and derived works, without forcing
consequences for the author.

This is a very reasonable expedient, IMHO, for helping people to
further the goals of the FSF as expressed in the manifest.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m2u3hof1w3.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net> Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
>According to the Manifesto, Stallman had to write GNU so that he could
>share it with other people who liked it *and* so that everyone would
>be able to obtain good system software free.  Stallman also said that
>he is required to consider it wrong for one to hoard information.  

Both of these are correct summaries, to my understanding.

>If you received and modified GNU software, you shouldn't be required to
>share it, *unless* you have engaged in the act of "distribution".

The first problem is what is meant by "distribution" and what is meant
by "being required to share it".

>Once you have distributed, being selective about further distributions
>is indistinguishable from "hoarding",

Not at all, and this ties in to my previous comment.  Suppose I write
some software and make it available on a public FTP site.  That would,
by nearly anybody's definition, consitute making a "distribution".

Now somebody comes to me and says they'd like a copy of my program,
but they don't have network access.  Not only that, but the only media
they can read is a CD-ROM recorded using a nonstandard encoding.  Do
you feel I have a moral obligation to create such a CD-ROM for that
person?

Yes, this is an extreme example, but if you truely believe in the
obligation to share software, it would apply here as well.

If you don't think it would apply there as well, tell us precisely
what criteria you would use to determine whether there was a moral
obligation to satisfy any particular request.

>I've stated that I don't believe making snapshots available for
>testing to be "distributing".  However, you've previously posted that
>3.10 is the latest "production release" of GNAT and that ACT's
>customers have been enjoying it for quite a while. 

No, Robert has not said that.  I'll let him speak for himself but I
will say there's never been *any* version of GNAT either inside or
outside of ACT that identified itself as "3.10".

>*That*, in my opinion, is the act of "distributing".

You need to define "distributing" more precisely before one can judge
whether they agree with your opinion or not.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:
> In article <m2u3hof1w3.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net> Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
> >According to the Manifesto, Stallman had to write GNU so that he could
> >share it with other people who liked it *and* so that everyone would
> >be able to obtain good system software free.  Stallman also said that
> >he is required to consider it wrong for one to hoard information.  
> 
> Both of these are correct summaries, to my understanding.

Thank you.

> >If you received and modified GNU software, you shouldn't be required to
> >share it, *unless* you have engaged in the act of "distribution".
> 
> The first problem is what is meant by "distribution" and what is meant
> by "being required to share it".
> 
> >Once you have distributed, being selective about further distributions
> >is indistinguishable from "hoarding",
> 
> Not at all, and this ties in to my previous comment.  Suppose I write
> some software and make it available on a public FTP site.  That would,
> by nearly anybody's definition, consitute making a "distribution".

Yes.

> Now somebody comes to me and says they'd like a copy of my program,
> but they don't have network access.  Not only that, but the only media
> they can read is a CD-ROM recorded using a nonstandard encoding.  Do
> you feel I have a moral obligation to create such a CD-ROM for that
> person?

No, because you've made it available.  Telling them to get network access
so that they can acquire it themselves is sufficient.

> Yes, this is an extreme example, but if you truely believe in the
> obligation to share software, it would apply here as well.

By putting it up for anon-ftp, you have fulfilled your obligation.

> If you don't think it would apply there as well, tell us precisely
> what criteria you would use to determine whether there was a moral
> obligation to satisfy any particular request.

If an individual is solely in receipt of GNU software, his obligation
is only to tell you how he got it, so that you can do as he did to
acquire it.

If an individual has made enhancements to GNU software and has engaged
in the act of "distributing" (a voluntary act, mind you), then he is
obligated to share.

> >I've stated that I don't believe making snapshots available for
> >testing to be "distributing".  However, you've previously posted that
> >3.10 is the latest "production release" of GNAT and that ACT's
> >customers have been enjoying it for quite a while. 
> 
> No, Robert has not said that.  I'll let him speak for himself but I
> will say there's never been *any* version of GNAT either inside or
> outside of ACT that identified itself as "3.10".

He has already spoken for himself... and then back-pedaled.  Check out:
<http://xp5.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?recnum=14813401&server=db97p2&CONTEXT=870210292.337379588&hitnum=5>

> >*That*, in my opinion, is the act of "distributing".
> 
> You need to define "distributing" more precisely before one can judge
> whether they agree with your opinion or not.

"the process of supplying something".

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m2en8ttgpr.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net> Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
>You may actually be surprised at what Stallman's ideals actually are!
>I thought as you did, and pressed Richard about the altruism he
>describes in his GNU Manifesto.  He told me that "[I was] interpreting
>what [he] wrote in a way that is not [his] interpretation."  I then
>asked him to explain just exactly how he got from "if I like a program
>I must share it with other people who like it" to "each person should
>be free to decide who not to give a copy to".

I don't speak for Stallman, but these two are both types of freedoms.
If I receive (or develop) a program, I must be free to be able to give
it to anybody I want, but I must also be free to not have to spend my
resources giving it to people to whom I do not wish to distribute it
to.  The latter freedom is as important as the first, and perhaps more
so.  If the act of developing (or simply receiving a copy of) a
program creates a burden on me to spend my resources making that
available to anybody who requests it, I cannot, as a practical matter,
either develop or receive such a program since doing so would obligate
me to a burden I could not afford.

The point is that if I distribute GPL'ed software to somebody, I
cannot *forbid* them from redistributing it.  I also cannot *require*
them to redistribute it.  I can *suggest* to them that they either not
redistribute it or, alternatively, that they widely redistribute it.  If
my reasons are convincing and do not impose an unreasonable burden,
they can choose to follow my suggestions (this is especiallyt true where
there is a friendly relationship between me and that person).  Or can they
can choose not to follow them.

If they choose the latter, I am perfectly free not to give them a copy
of some program in the future.

All of these choices are different types of freedoms.

The one and only requirement to distribute something imposed by the
GPL is that if I choose to give the program only in binary form to
some person, I am then *required* to make the sources available to
that person or to any person to whom they redistributed the binaries
(but to no other people).

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Samuel Tardieu]

>>>>> "Ronald" == Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

Ronald> In light of this statement from the Manifesto "the desire to
Ronald> be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving
Ronald> the world in general of all or part of that creativity," I
Ronald> think he sold out on his principles.

I've been reading your non-technical posts since a long time now, and
I couldn't answer these two questions: what is *your* ideal, and what
is your contribution to the community?

  Sam
-- 
Samuel Tardieu -- sam@ada.eu.org

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Chris Morgan]

Ronald Cole wrote:

> You may actually be surprised at what Stallman's ideals actually are!


No, I don't think so, I think it is you who has the misunderstanding.


> I thought as you did, and pressed Richard about the altruism he
> describes in his GNU Manifesto.  He told me that "[I was] interpreting
> what [he] wrote in a way that is not [his] interpretation."


You have to understand that when it comes to high-minded principles,
Richard has already "been there, done that". For the GNU project to
succeed, there has to be some pragmatism. If that includes some actions
that don't square with your interpretation of the manifesto, well so be
it. At MIT he tried the "free software for all, no restrictions, let's
just all get along" idea. It just doesn't work, so now this is something
different. The best explanation of this is given in Hackers by Steven
Levy - in fact RMS sometimes just refers to the book rather than try to
explain _again_.


  I then
> asked him to explain just exactly how he got from "if I like a program
> I must share it with other people who like it" to "each person should
> be free to decide who not to give a copy to".  He never bothered to
> reply.  


Have you considered the possibility that he doesn't owe an explanation
to anyone, especially not to people who after all this time question his
motives. He makes mistakes just like all of us, and the GPL is
necessarily imperfect, but your particular pronouncements are hardly
conducive to constructive debate on the matter.

In light of this statement from the Manifesto "the desire to
> be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world
> in general of all or part of that creativity," I think he sold out on
> his principles.

Well you're just flat out wrong.

> 
> Don't trust anybody over thirty...  ;)
> 
> --
> Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
> Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
> President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
> My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Ok, I can play that game. Never trust anyone who has to put their status
in their sigs.

Oh yeah, ;^), that fixes everything.

Chris

-- 
Chris Morgan <mihalis @ ix.netcom.com>

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

Chris Morgan <mihalis@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> No, I don't think so, I think it is you who has the misunderstanding.

Please, cite me to the relevant parts of the Manifesto that directly
refute my "interpretation"!

> You have to understand that when it comes to high-minded principles,
> Richard has already "been there, done that". For the GNU project to
> succeed, there has to be some pragmatism. If that includes some actions
> that don't square with your interpretation of the manifesto, well so be
> it. At MIT he tried the "free software for all, no restrictions, let's
> just all get along" idea. It just doesn't work, so now this is something
> different. The best explanation of this is given in Hackers by Steven
> Levy - in fact RMS sometimes just refers to the book rather than try to
> explain _again_.

Sorry, I won't accept your conclusion that "[f]or the GNU project to
succeed, there has to be some pragmatism" without supporting argument.
And, yes, I've read "Hackers".  Have you read "The Law" by Frederic
Bastiat?

> Have you considered the possibility that he doesn't owe an explanation
> to anyone, especially not to people who after all this time question his
> motives. He makes mistakes just like all of us, and the GPL is
> necessarily imperfect, but your particular pronouncements are hardly
> conducive to constructive debate on the matter.

I'm not questioning his motives at all.  If his Manifesto is still open
to interpretation (albeit incorrect), then it probably needs yet-another
clarification.

> > In light of this statement from the Manifesto "the desire to
> > be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world
> > in general of all or part of that creativity," I think he sold out on
> > his principles.
> 
> Well you're just flat out wrong.

Well, which is it?  You say he acquired a new set of "pragmatic"
principles which rejects the idealistic principles layed out in the
Manifesto in a previous paragraph and then take issue with me pointing
it out?

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Chris Morgan]

Ronald Cole wrote:
> 
> Chris Morgan <mihalis@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> > No, I don't think so, I think it is you who has the misunderstanding.
> 
> Please, cite me to the relevant parts of the Manifesto that directly
> refute my "interpretation"!

I don't have to, the person who wrote it has already told you that he
doesn't share your interpretation. It's not a legal document. You have
not received anything which claims to be a perfectly conformant product
of that document. You have received things licensed under the GPL which
is not the same thing. The manifesto is a broad statement of intent and
not intended to be subjected to minute scrutiny, unlike the GPL.


> Sorry, I won't accept your conclusion that "[f]or the GNU project to
> succeed, there has to be some pragmatism" without supporting argument.

That's your right, however how many projects which insist on pure
idealism in all cases have succeeded? Do you think the GNU project could
be one?


> And, yes, I've read "Hackers".  Have you read "The Law" by Frederic
> Bastiat?

No, I'm interested though, what is it about?


> I'm not questioning his motives at all.  

I thought you were!

If his Manifesto is still open
> to interpretation (albeit incorrect), then it probably needs yet-another
> clarification.

Perhaps it would helpful to have such a clarification. However I submit
you haven't encouraged RMS to contribute to this debate, quite the
opposite.

> 
> > > In light of this statement from the Manifesto "the desire to
> > > be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world
> > > in general of all or part of that creativity," I think he sold out on
> > > his principles.
> >
> > Well you're just flat out wrong.
> 
> Well, which is it?  You say he acquired a new set of "pragmatic"
> principles which rejects the idealistic principles layed out in the
> Manifesto in a previous paragraph and then take issue with me pointing
> it out?

I think you're deliberately twisting my words. That is not what I said.

The Manifesto in not written as a promise of precise adherence to set of
rules, it's a call to arms, a challenge to thoughtful software users
throughout the industry. RMS has never deviated from the path he set out
to take when he wrote the manifesto. If you think that he has then I
submit you are in a very small minority.

When he decided to get more specific he wrote the GPL. My view is this
is an attempt to preserve as close to 100% of the aims of the manifesto
as possible whilst surrounding them with some protections against
exploitation and disclaiming some unreasonable responsibilities that
might naively be deduced from the manifesto. Other people in this
thread, much more knowledgable than me have told you repeatedly that the
GPL is not being infringed. Although I don't think you even acknowledge
this, you haven't proved your point. Let's assume for the sake of
argument this was proved to you, e.g. in a court. Then that should be
the end of the matter, you would not be able to say "But I have other
rights given to me by the manifesto" as there are no such rights. Of
course if the GPL were being infringed then you would have a valid
complaint. But instead of sticking to discussing the license under which
you received the software you attempt to broaden the argument into the
meaning of the manifesto and whether RMS has sold out or not. I guess
you sought "extra leverage" in the more idealistic wording of the
Manifesto, but to this reader you went from wrong on a technicality to,
as I said, flat out wrong.

Chris

-- 
Chris Morgan <mihalis @ ix.netcom.com>
  "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,"

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

Chris Morgan <mihalis@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> I don't have to, the person who wrote it has already told you that he
> doesn't share your interpretation. It's not a legal document. You have
> not received anything which claims to be a perfectly conformant product
> of that document. You have received things licensed under the GPL which
> is not the same thing. The manifesto is a broad statement of intent and
> not intended to be subjected to minute scrutiny, unlike the GPL.

I asked Stallman to clarify exactly what I was misunderstanding.  I'm
apparently not the only one confused.  To quote from the emacs faq:

 "NOTE: The word "free" in the title of the Free Software Foundation refers
  to "freedom," not "zero dollars."  Anyone can charge any price for
  GPL-covered software that they want to.  However, in practice, the
  freedom enforced by the GPL leads to low prices, because you can always  
  get the software for less money from someone else, because everyone has
  the right to resell or give away GPL-covered software."

Apparently, with GNAT one cannot always get "the software" (e.g., the
"current product release" of GNAT) for less money from someone else,
because of policies like Cygnus' or ACT's whereby they'll threaten to
quit doing business with you if you exercise your "right".

And then there's this tidbit from Stallman from the same faq:

 "The legal meaning of the GNU copyleft is less important than the
  spirit, which is that Emacs is a free software project and that work
  pertaining to Emacs should also be free software.  "Free" means that
  all users have the freedom to study, share, change and improve Emacs.
  To make sure everyone has this freedom, pass along source code when you
  distribute any version of Emacs or a related program, and give the
  recipients the same freedom that you enjoyed."

Here Stallman seems to freely admits that the GNU system is free, not
because of any legal requirements in the GPL, but because the author
(the FSF) practices the Golden Rule.  And he seems to command that
everyone else who receives the GNU system practice it, too.

If "all users" was not meant to be synonymous with the "everyone" (all
computer users) referred to in the Manifesto; rather, to be strictly
limited to those who are actually able to use the GNU system (e.g.,
those who are actually in possession of it), then I want to know why
the Manifesto hasn't been brought "up to spec"...

> That's your right, however how many projects which insist on pure
> idealism in all cases have succeeded?

I'm inclined to say "one" because I only know of one: Linux.  However,
such insistance isn't formalized in any writing that I know of.

> Do you think the GNU project could be one?

Yes, I do.  Such would be voluntary socialism, which I can support as
a Libertarian.

> > Have you read "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat?
> No, I'm interested though, what is it about?

<http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~ronald/patriot/the_law.html> Note the
arguments about man's natural tendency to plunder.  I believe that
allowing ACT and Cygnus to leverage GCC to create new versions of GNU
software to order to sell binaries to clients before releasing the
source to the public is tantamount to encouraging the plundering of
free software.  The GPL is not much better than public domain in this
regard.

ACT has obtained a monopoly on developing and servicing GNAT and has
used what I consider a fatal flaw in the GPL to bolster their position.

If GNU's goal is really that "[o]nce GNU is written, everyone will be
able to obtain good system software free, just like air", then I'd
like to see Stallman answer this "easily rebutted objection to GNU's
goals":

  "My company needs a monopoly on developing and servicing
   modifications to free software in order to get a competitive
   edge."
   
> Perhaps it would helpful to have such a clarification. However I submit
> you haven't encouraged RMS to contribute to this debate, quite the
> opposite.

I could interpret his reticence to clarify as possibly intending the
"sophistry" in the Manifesto to trick idealists into contributing code
to the FSF.  I, for one, wouldn't want to allow people like Robert
Dewar to monopolize enhancements to software I had created for the
betterment of the world!

> I think you're deliberately twisting my words. That is not what I said.
> 
> The Manifesto in not written as a promise of precise adherence to set of
> rules, it's a call to arms, a challenge to thoughtful software users
> throughout the industry. RMS has never deviated from the path he set out
> to take when he wrote the manifesto. If you think that he has then I
> submit you are in a very small minority.

I don't believe that RMS, himself, has deviated, in practice, from
what he wrote in the Manifesto.  However, I believe he has deviated,
in principle, by allowing others to leverage monopolies off of his
work.  He wrote that he was "required to consider it wrong" and yet
now he appears to tolerate it.

> When he decided to get more specific he wrote the GPL. My view is this
> is an attempt to preserve as close to 100% of the aims of the manifesto
> as possible whilst surrounding them with some protections against
> exploitation and disclaiming some unreasonable responsibilities that
> might naively be deduced from the manifesto.

If it was such an attempt, I'm sure he would want to clarify his
position.  A monopoly is hoarding, plain and simple, and Stallman's
feelings are very clear in this regard: "Since I do not like the
consequences that result if everyone hoards information, I am required
to consider it wrong for one to do so.  Specifically, the desire to be
rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in
general of all or part of that creativity."

> Other people in this
> thread, much more knowledgable than me have told you repeatedly that the
> GPL is not being infringed.

I know it's not.  That's why I asked Richard to entertain changing the
GPL in this regard for the release of gcc-2.8.  I believe that the
Manifesto clearly denounces hoarding in all its incarnations, and that
Dewar's monopoly on GNAT is tantamount to hoarding.

Dewar seems to tacitly agree with me on this: before I raised my
objection, he claimed that gnat-3.10 was the "current product release"
and that most of his "large customers on HPUX" had switched to it;
but, afterwards he backpedaled and instead claimed that gnat-3.10 was
still very much a "beta release" and unstable and that Stallman was
strongly against the practice of distributing beta software past the
beta-testers.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

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Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

> And then there's this tidbit from Stallman from the same faq:
> 
>  "The legal meaning of the GNU copyleft is less important than the
>   spirit, which is that Emacs is a free software project and that work
>   pertaining to Emacs should also be free software.  "Free" means that
>   all users have the freedom to study, share, change and improve Emacs.
>   To make sure everyone has this freedom, pass along source code when you
>   distribute any version of Emacs or a related program, and give the
>   recipients the same freedom that you enjoyed."
> 
> Here Stallman seems to freely admits that the GNU system is free, not
> because of any legal requirements in the GPL, but because the author
> (the FSF) practices the Golden Rule.  And he seems to command that
> everyone else who receives the GNU system practice it, too.

Look, Stallman is not GOD, and does not pass commandment over
mortals.  He is a man with vision and ethics, but I doubt that he aims
to force everybody to behave like him, unwilling how he might be.  The
software he manages is handed out under the GPL, and this means that
you can only use or distribute it if you comply to the licence
conditions.  As you have not signed a contract, you can feel free to
disagree with the licence conditions and not feel bound by it.  In
which case the copyright holder will not relax his rights to the
software in a way making you legally use it.

You adhere to the letter of the GPL, you can use the software,
according to the licence.  Simple as that.  Nobody "commands" you to
practice some ominous Golden Rule, or obey a secret hidden code, or
burn Microsoft Office packages at new moon.  Of course, GNU people
will be more than glad if you do those things (they help wth strange
programs, see
man pom
for an example), but they are not mandatory.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Masterson]

David Kastrup <dak@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:

> Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
> 
> > And then there's this tidbit from Stallman from the same faq:
> > 
> >  "The legal meaning of the GNU copyleft is less important than the
> >   spirit, which is that Emacs is a free software project and that work
> >   pertaining to Emacs should also be free software.  "Free" means that
> >   all users have the freedom to study, share, change and improve Emacs.
> >   To make sure everyone has this freedom, pass along source code when you
> >   distribute any version of Emacs or a related program, and give the
> >   recipients the same freedom that you enjoyed."
> > 
> > Here Stallman seems to freely admits that the GNU system is free,
> > not because of any legal requirements in the GPL, but because the
> > author (the FSF) practices the Golden Rule.  And he seems to
> > command that everyone else who receives the GNU system practice
> > it, too.
> 
> Look, Stallman is not GOD, and does not pass commandment over
> mortals.  He is a man with vision and ethics, but I doubt that he
> aims to force everybody to behave like him, unwilling how he might
> be.  The software he manages is handed out under the GPL, and this
> means that you can only use or distribute it if you comply to the
> licence conditions.  As you have not signed a contract, you can feel
> free to disagree with the licence conditions and not feel bound by
> it.  In which case the copyright holder will not relax his rights to
> the software in a way making you legally use it.

Wait a minute, there's something wrong with this paragraph:

1. Stallman is not GOD -- granted.
2. He can't force everyone to behave like him -- granted.
3. He can try to force everyone to behave like him when using his (or
   other's like his) software -- definition of the GPL.
4. By using GPL'ed software, you have signed a license that should be
   every bit as binding as the Microsoft (et.al.) copyright licenses
   that you accept by opening their package -- license definition.
5. If the GPL is a lawyers construct to represent the "Golden Rule"
   and, yet, has flaws in it that allow subversion of the Rule, then
   maybe it should be modified -- as done in GPL v2.
6. Disagreeing with the Golden Rule means that you shouldn't be able
   to use GPL'ed software, not that you should be able to use it and
   ignore the GPL -- ignorance of the law is no defense.

BTW, these are logical conclusions based upon past discussions, not a
statement of my beliefs.
-- 
David Masterson
david@batcave.bungi.com

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

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David Masterson <david@batcave.bungi.com> writes:

> 4. By using GPL'ed software, you have signed a license that should be
>    every bit as binding as the Microsoft (et.al.) copyright licenses
>    that you accept by opening their package -- license definition.

Wrong.  You have *not* signed such a licence "by using GPLed"
software, and consequently cannot be held to it, or sued for breach of
contract.  There is no such thing as "silent agreement" when using
software or opening a package.  What you can be sued for if you
disregard the "licence" is breach of copyright, as the copyright
holder has agreed to relax his rights for the sake of your using his
software only under certain constraints.

This is an important difference:
a) The penalties and procedures for breach of contract and breach of
copyright are somewhat different.
b) The only person allowed to sue for breach of copyright with
relation to some GPLed software is the copyright holder of some piece
of it.  Other than that, it is not enforceable.

> 5. If the GPL is a lawyers construct to represent the "Golden Rule"
>    and, yet, has flaws in it that allow subversion of the Rule, then
>    maybe it should be modified -- as done in GPL v2.

You are confusing things here.  The GPL is a user licence.  It neither
gives or takes any rights to his own software to the author, nor can
it in fact legally restrict the author's right to do what he wants
to do with his own software.  He can quite legally stop distributing
the source of it, although not the redistribution of existing GPLed
copies because he has already granted a usage licence including
copying.

The GPL is *not* some declaration of compellation of niceness by the
author.  Nor is it useful for the spread of free software to demand
from prospective authors to go in chain and fetters.  It gives some
guarantees of legal safety for the user, but none of of overall
availability (only of source availability if you got just binaries
from a redistributor).

In fact, some original software might be GPLed without making any
source available by the author, only binaries.  The most you could do
in that case is sue for misleading claims (unfair competition or
something like that).  Of course, he cannot do so if his work is a
derivative of some software for which he does not hold the copyright.

The GPL is a licence for the user, not the author.  It only enforces
something related to a vision of the "Golden Rule" on the user and
possible redistributor of the software, not the author.  It could not
do so even if it wanted to:  the author keeps the copyright to his
software and can do with it what he wants.

The alternative would be to require the author to waive his copyright
and assign it to some third party, such as the FSF, before he was
allowed to use the GPL for it.  The FSF is presumably neither willing
nor able to manage the copyright business of all authors of free
software all over the world.

Don't go whining about how the GPL does not strike you as useful
before you understand the implications of it and alternatives.

-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> <<Apparently, with GNAT one cannot always get "the software" (e.g., the
> "current product release" of GNAT) for less money from someone else,
> because of policies like Cygnus' or ACT's whereby they'll threaten to
> quit doing business with you if you exercise your "right".
> >>
> 
> This is pure fantasy, ACT has at no time threatened to quit doing
> business with anyone for any reason.

So, if one of your "wavefront" customers started giving me copies and
I proceeded to make them available for anonymous ftp, you wouldn't
retaliate?

Are there any wavefront clients that would like to test this bold
assertion out?

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1143 bytes --]


Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> > <<Apparently, with GNAT one cannot always get "the software" (e.g., the
> > "current product release" of GNAT) for less money from someone else,
> > because of policies like Cygnus' or ACT's whereby they'll threaten to
> > quit doing business with you if you exercise your "right".
> > >>
> > 
> > This is pure fantasy, ACT has at no time threatened to quit doing
> > business with anyone for any reason.
> 
> So, if one of your "wavefront" customers started giving me copies and
> I proceeded to make them available for anonymous ftp, you wouldn't
> retaliate?
> 
> Are there any wavefront clients that would like to test this bold
> assertion out?

Well, if you can't find any, it might just be that they don't feel
compelled to invest labour in order to actively encourage and support
an obvious troublemaker.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

David Kastrup <dak@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:
> Well, if you can't find any, it might just be that they don't feel
> compelled to invest labour in order to actively encourage and support
> an obvious troublemaker.

In what way am I making trouble?  And if I am, whom am I making
trouble for?

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Isaac]

In article <m24t8vw0c9.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>, Ronald Cole wrote:
>
>So, if one of your "wavefront" customers started giving me copies and
>I proceeded to make them available for anonymous ftp, you wouldn't
>retaliate?
>
>Are there any wavefront clients that would like to test this bold
>assertion out?

I suspect you are the one person on earth least likely to get this 
code.  My understanding is that the GPL assures me that if I get a
binary from GPL'd code that I like, no one can keep me from sharing it
with my friends or getting the source and modifying it to my liking.  
These is the freedom the manifesto talks about and the GPL tries to assure.


How many friends have you made in the GNAT community?

Isaac

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

Isaac@yellow.submarine.pla (Isaac) writes:
> In article <m24t8vw0c9.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>, Ronald Cole wrote:
> >So, if one of your "wavefront" customers started giving me copies and
> >I proceeded to make them available for anonymous ftp, you wouldn't
> >retaliate?
> >Are there any wavefront clients that would like to test this bold
> >assertion out?
> 
> I suspect you are the one person on earth least likely to get this 
> code.  My understanding is that the GPL assures me that if I get a
> binary from GPL'd code that I like, no one can keep me from sharing it
> with my friends or getting the source and modifying it to my liking.  
> These is the freedom the manifesto talks about and the GPL tries to assure.
> How many friends have you made in the GNAT community?

I suspect I'll make quite a few once I find someone to feed me
wavefront releases so that I can redistribute them publicly like the
Linux development kernel.

If not to me, then perhaps someone will feed them to the egcs project
<http://www.cygnus.com/egcs/>.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole says

<<So, if one of your "wavefront" customers started giving me copies and
I proceeded to make them available for anonymous ftp, you wouldn't
retaliate?>>

As has been explained before, and as I think most people except Ronald
Cole perfectly well understand, the situation is as follows.

We ask people receiving wavefront versions to refrain from distributing
them, because it is actively unhelpful to the GNAT project and to the
development and use of GNAT (both by customers and by unsupported users)
to have versions floating around that have not gone through the kind of
field testing that we insist on for public release.

A wavefront version is a temporary release that is made for the purpose
of solving a particular customers problem. We do not promise at any point
to make such wavefront versions available -- indeed both from our point
of view and from the point of view of most of our customers, it is better
to figure out workarounds rather than be constantly using new versions
of the compiler that have not been field tested -- by their nature
wavefront versions cannot be thoroughly tested (or they would become
real releases suitable for general release).

If people started distributing wavefront versions freely, then w would
probably reluctantly decide to stop making them available, since it would
be clear that their distribution was harmful. That would be too bad for
the cases where they really solve a problem.

But as I said, this is a very small part of our support activity anyway
(sending out wavefront releases). So if we did decide to curtail the
distribution of wavefront release because of problems with uncontrolled
releases, then this would be nothing like "refusing to do business
with people" or anything like that. it would just be a matter of balancing
the needs of customers in certain situations with other needs, something
we have to do all the time.

One important point here to realize is that sometimes we will send out
wavefronts that we know have a flaw, that will not affect the current
use. For example, we may know that a recent change has broken the COBOL
interface, but if we know a given customer is not using the COBOL
interface, then the wavefornt may still be useful. But of course
general distribution of that wavefront would most definitely be harmful.

The situation with GNAT is very much like that with the GCC snapshots.
The GNU project strongly discourages people from distributing the
snapshots for exactly the same reasons I give above, and generally
we don't see the snapshots being widely distributed, and that is
definitely a good thing.

The point here is to aim at effective quality-controlled release management
for GNAT. The fact that GNAT is free software means that some restrictions
that could be achieved with contractual instruments for propietary software
cannot be achieved this way for GNAT.

But in practice that is not a problem. The GNAT user community in general
understands I think quite well what our goals are here, and cooperates
not because there is some lawyer threatening them with dire penalties,
but because they want to help the GNAT project. That we do not have
dozens of wavefront versions of GNAT in various unknown states floating
around the net, causing mass confusion, testifies to this.

There is, as Richard Kenner, points out a huge difference between
illegal and impolite or uncooperative. This distinction seems to
be lost on Ronald, but I think the rest of the community understands it.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Thomas Koenig]

In gnu.misc.discuss, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:

>The situation with GNAT is very much like that with the GCC snapshots.
>The GNU project strongly discourages people from distributing the
>snapshots for exactly the same reasons I give above, and generally
>we don't see the snapshots being widely distributed, and that is
>definitely a good thing.

Some very capable people have now started developing a gcc version in
the open, including frequent snapshots (see http://www.cygnus.com/egcs).

They don't appear to have anyobdy for the Ada frontend yet, though,
probably because not very many people outside of ACT have hacked
on GNAT, and not very many people in the free software community
seem to use Ada, compared to C and C++.

[Actually, this is quite a pity.  I'd like to rewrite a small piece of
Unix standard software I've contributed to the free systems in Ada, but
I'm more or less forced to continue to use C because the state of UNIX
bindings for GNAT is less than happy.  Certainly anybody who reads
bugtraq has to agree that using C in security-relevant code has its
dangers :-]
-- 
Thomas Koenig, Thomas.Koenig@ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet.
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double
logarithmic diagram.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Leslie Mikesell]

In article <dewar.871738278@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:

>As has been explained before, and as I think most people except Ronald
>Cole perfectly well understand, the situation is as follows.
>
>We ask people receiving wavefront versions to refrain from distributing
>them, because it is actively unhelpful to the GNAT project and to the
>development and use of GNAT (both by customers and by unsupported users)
>to have versions floating around that have not gone through the kind of
>field testing that we insist on for public release.

Do you imagine the popularity of Linux to have been damaged by the
simultaneous releases of 2.0.x (stable-track) and 2.1.x (development)
kernels?  I'd say the opposite is true even though a few newbies
are confused.  Why worry about the people who don't bother to read
the disclaimers?

Les Mikesell
  les@mcs.com

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
> In article <dewar.871738278@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
> >As has been explained before, and as I think most people except Ronald
> >Cole perfectly well understand, the situation is as follows.
> >We ask people receiving wavefront versions to refrain from distributing
> >them, because it is actively unhelpful to the GNAT project and to the
> >development and use of GNAT (both by customers and by unsupported users)
> >to have versions floating around that have not gone through the kind of
> >field testing that we insist on for public release.
> 
> Do you imagine the popularity of Linux to have been damaged by the
> simultaneous releases of 2.0.x (stable-track) and 2.1.x (development)
> kernels?  I'd say the opposite is true even though a few newbies
> are confused.  Why worry about the people who don't bother to read
> the disclaimers?

Amen!  Also note that the public release of 3.09 appears to be a
public release that has "not gone through the kind of field testing
that we insist on for public release."  The gcc-272.dif released
with the source distribution contains a patch that introduces an
optimizer bug that was apparently made just one day before being
released.

Of course, one might interpret this fact to demonstrate just exactly
what kind of field testing ACT insists on for public releases.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Mike Stump]

In article <dewar.871738278@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>The situation with GNAT is very much like that with the GCC snapshots.
>The GNU project strongly discourages people from distributing the
>snapshots for exactly the same reasons I give above, and generally
>we don't see the snapshots being widely distributed,

This is now false.  See the egcs project at Cygnus at:

	http://www.cygnus.com/egcs

>and that is definitely a good thing.

This is questionable, and many disagree with you.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

<<This is now false.  See the egcs project at Cygnus at:

        http://www.cygnus.com/egcs>>

We will have to see how this develops. At best it will be an interesting
experimental environment for trying out new ideas in a situation where
stability is not the first order of business. At worst, it will just be
a further divergence in gcc versions. Hopefully it will succeed in being
the first of these rather than the second.

Actually it would be very nice if there was more experimental activity
with GNAT in terms of interesting new experimental ideas, but so far
we haven't seen much of this -- hopefully we will see more in the future,
this is after all why the sources are available (and why the DoD insisted
on the sources being distributed under the GPL!)

For example, it would be nice if someone would have a crack at trying
out Tuck's "with type" idea for resolving mutual dependencies in library
units -- probably this would not be too hard.

Note incidentally that one of the improvements in 3.10 is that we have
rewritten all the former spitbol utilities in Ada -- which removes one
obstacle to modifying GNAT, particularly when it comes to adding new
syntax etc.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Paul Lyon]

Robert Dewar (dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu) wrote:

: Actually it would be very nice if there was more experimental activity
: with GNAT in terms of interesting new experimental ideas, but so far
: we haven't seen much of this -- hopefully we will see more in the future,
: this is after all why the sources are available (and why the DoD insisted
: on the sources being distributed under the GPL!)

I'm curious. What say had the DoD in GNAT? Was the possibility of
experimental activity with the compiler the only reason the DoD insisted
on having the sources distributed under the GPL? 

There is a certain economic sense to goverment support of free software as 
has been argued in gnu.misc.discuss recently; in this connection, it would 
be useful to know what the DoD's take on the GPL was.

Ciao,

Paul

--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Paul Lyon                                  | "Without true justice
Liberal Arts Computer Lab                  |  there can be no peace."
University of Texas at Austin              |         Lucretia Coffin Mott
email: pdl@la.utexas.edu                   |
'phone: 512-471-5121 *** fax: 512-471-1061 |
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

<<I'm curious. What say had the DoD in GNAT? Was the possibility of
experimental activity with the compiler the only reason the DoD insisted
on having the sources distributed under the GPL?

There is a certain economic sense to goverment support of free software as
has been argued in gnu.misc.discuss recently; in this connection, it would
be useful to know what the DoD's take on the GPL was.>>


The DoD funded GNAT to provide a research vehicle for academic use, and it
was clear for this purpose that free availability of sources was important,
so the NYU contract with the DoD insisted on

   a. The use of the GPL for all sources
   b. The assignment of the copyright to the FSF

The second part is important, because it ensures that GNAT remains under
the GPL. Note that the copyright holder of GPL'ed software can always
change their mind, and not use the GPL on a subsequent release. This
for instance could have happened if NYU had held the copyright, and had 
decided to try to commercialize GNAT after the contract ended. But the
assignment to the FSF involves a commitment for continued availability
under the GPL.

The narrow focus of the DoD interest in GNAT partly resulted from dealing
with rather fierce opposition to the entire project from some, but by no
means all, vendors of proprietary Ada products. Indeed the contract with
the DoD was for a subset of Ada 95, excluding some key feaures (including
fixed-point and subunits, that were perceived to be required in the market
place, but not critical for academic research -- validation was also
excluded).

In fact the missing features were included anyway, but not on government
time. Both Ed and I took sabbaticals during the project, so we could work
on it on our own time, not being paid by government sources, so we used
(part of) this time to implement the missing features.

We always recognized the potential of GNAT in two other areas

    1. Teaching. The DoD did not have the view of GNAT as useful for
       this purpose, and indeed Mike Feldman's proposal to use GNAT
       for the academic Ada compiler to be supported by the DoD, was
       turned down, despite its advantageous price, on the grounds that
       ACT was not a credible organization for carrying out the validation
       (a bit ironic in retrospect, given that ACT is still the only
       company to have done 100% validations with all the annexes, but
       it's easy to be wiser after the fact -- of course it is a bit of
       a puzzle why validation was required at all in this project).

       Nevertheless, we have always regarded this as a major opportunity
       for GNAT, and have put a lot of work, e.g. particularly in the
       generation of good error messages) to facilitate this use. We
       are certainly pleased to see it succeed in this area, and in
       particular the fact that it is being used at the Air Force
       Academy for teaching Ada, having been chosen by them as the
       best product for the task, is pleasing. However, there is fierce
       competition from Object Ada, and my view is that having two
       low cost options for teaching is a good thing. Two is a magic
       number when it comes to competition, and the competition to
       provide the best possible environment for students learning
       Ada will definitely benefit those students. I should say in
       this area that we are planning to distribute the next version
       of the NT version of GNAT with AdaGIDE, the IDE written by
       Martin Carlisle at the Air Force Academy. This is GPL'ed code
       written in Ada that provides a very nice environment for 
       student use (and may well be found useful by advanced users
       as well).

    2. Commercial production use. This was of course very definitely NOT
       part of the reason for DoD's support. Although the DoD had poured
       a lot of money early on in Ada 83 days into the support of 
       production compilers (look up how much was spent on ALS and ALSN
       for example), it was clearly not viable for the DoD to support
       the GNAT project on these grounds.

       However, the open nature of the development, and the use of the free
       software approach, meant that there was no way to restrict this
       possibility. Indeed, we have always taken the view that the needs of
       the academic community are not so different from the commercial
       production community. Both need high quality, full language
       compilers. Both can benefit from the availability of sources, and
       free redistribution.

       We always intended to produce a compiler that would compete
       effectively with proprietary compilers, because we saw this as
       the mechanism for continued support and development of GNAT. At
       first, we assumed that Cygnus would take on this task. However,
       Cygnus had no interest in Ada, and we later realized that we 
       would have to form our own company to follow this idea. Actually
       I think that works out well. Having ACT be 100% dedicated to
       Ada and Ada related products is more effective for the Ada 
       community.

So, I hope that give a clear background on the history of the GNAT
funding and project. Certainly the GNAT contract was one of the more
remarkable contracts signed by the government (it includes the full
text of the GPL, and, as I mentioned, explicitly requires the copyright
to be assigned to the FSF). The credit for making this happen belongs
to Chris Anderson, and her imaginative and flexible support staff at
Eglin Air Force base. A lot of tricky mazes had to be threaded to
get GNAT to happen, and Chris managed to find her way through them
where I am sure many others would have failed.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Thomas Koenig]

In gnu.misc.discuss, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
><<This is now false.  See the egcs project at Cygnus at:
>
>        http://www.cygnus.com/egcs>>
>
>We will have to see how this develops. At best it will be an interesting
>experimental environment for trying out new ideas in a situation where
>stability is not the first order of business.

I think you underestimate the people on that project.  At best, this will
become a quite stable release which will provide the free user community
with a stable, working gcc which can do RISC scheduling and which has
useful C++ templates.  The FSF, to whom all changes are assigned, can
then integrate them into 2.8 in whatever way they please.

>At worst, it will just be
>a further divergence in gcc versions.

It is already resulting in reducing these versions.  Quite a number of
groups which have brought out diverging gcc versions in the past (pgcc,
the Linux people, ...) are now working together under a single umbrella.
This is definitely a Good Thing.

>Actually it would be very nice if there was more experimental activity
>with GNAT in terms of interesting new experimental ideas,

Why doesn't somebody from ACT take part in the egcs project? So far,
egcs doesn't have anybody working on the Ada frontend to gcc.
-- 
Thomas Koenig, Thomas.Koenig@ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet.
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double
logarithmic diagram.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

<<I think you underestimate the people on that project.  At best, this will
become a quite stable release which will provide the free user community
with a stable, working gcc which can do RISC scheduling and which has
useful C++ templates.  The FSF, to whom all changes are assigned, can
then integrate them into 2.8 in whatever way they please.>>


Stability can only be achieved by being very careful and selective about
what changes are made. If that is the intention of the egcs project, then
that's too bad, since it seems to me the goals of a very free development
environment are better met by letting people experiment freely. If someone
has a neat bit of code that is 90% operational, and not very well documented,
then you certainly can't let it in to a building process that is aiming
at stablity, but the feature might still be very interesting to incorporate
and let people play with.

For example, during the recent round of development of exception handling
stuff for GCC, the developers on more than one occasion sent messages to
the effect of "well it is 90% working now, so why not go ahead and put it
in?" Quite approipriately, this was not considered to be in sufficiently
good shape to put into the mainline gcc development sources, but I would
hope that it WOULD be considered appropriate to put it into the egcs
project development, even if it were incomplete, not fully documented etc.

I don't think this has anything to do with the quality of people on the
project, it has to do with the fundamental goals. Perhaps I have 
misunderstood them, or perhaps they are not exactly clear yet.

Robert 

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

<<Why doesn't somebody from ACT take part in the egcs project? So far,
egcs doesn't have anybody working on the Ada frontend to gcc.>>

We do not see any advantage to our customer base in doing so at the current
time. On the contrary, we would regard it as confusing to our customer
base to have two threads of development, especially if the egcs one is
rather uncontrolled, which seems to be the general idea.

If it were the case that various people were contributing useful
experimental stuff to GNAT, then that would be nice, and the egcs
project would be a reasonable home for such developments, but right
now that does not seem to be happening on any significant scale.

Our primary concern is to make sure that the continued development
of GNAT is very carefully controlled, with an emphasis on stability,
reliability, and robustness. This requires careful configuration
control, and careful testing. Note that one very significant missing
element in any work on GNAT in conjunction with egcs would be that
there would be no access to our test suite (the test suite cannot be
made public, since it is primarily made up of customer code, which
has to be very carefully protected).

We just don't see that the egcs project has much to offer in helping
the development of GNAT. Sure, we understand that people would like
to get their hands on changes early if their primary interest is in
fiddling with the latest stuff, but we don't see that as the market
that we are addressing!

P.S. GNAT 3.10p is now cut for at least one target, and we are doing
some pre-release testing right now, so far it looks pretty good, so
we are hoping for a 3.10p release pretty soon.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Sam Mize says

<<Robert has been consistently saying that, based on what HE'S
heard, the egcs is supposed to be a looser, more exploratory
project ("experimental").  This doesn't match ACT's business
interests, so they aren't joining in.

As an uninvolved observer, I think Robert has not been trying
to slam egcs.>>


Right, I think if egcs keeps its eye firmly on the experimental
aspects of the enterprise, it can be a valuable addition.

As for ACT joining in? Joining in what? I see no general community
activity revolving around experimental additions to GNAT. So there
is nothing to join. It has nothing to do with business interests.
We are certainly not interested in experimental activity of this
type it is true, but what is more of a concern is that not many
other people seem to be either when it comes to Ada, and that is,
as I have pointed out before, too bad!

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Simon Wright]

ig25@fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig) writes:

> In gnu.misc.discuss, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
> 
> [egcs]
> 
> >As for ACT joining in? Joining in what?
> 
> Faster code on RISC machines, for one thing.  The egcs project uses a new
> scheduler which is a big win for certain architectures, such as Pentium,
> RS/6000 and HP/PA.
> 
> Don't your customers want that?

As someone who is about to become a customer, I think that (so long as
the generated code is fast enough) I would rather not have to worry
about its reliability.

In fact our projects would probably much rather stick with a known
release and work round problems than try to keep up with the hunt. I
realise that that may not be possible (it always has been so far).

-- 
Simon Wright                        Work Email: simon.j.wright@gecm.com
GEC-Marconi Radar & Defence Systems            Voice: +44(0)1705-701778
Command & Information Systems Divsion            FAX: +44(0)1705-701800

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Thomas said

<<>As for ACT joining in? Joining in what?

Faster code on RISC machines, for one thing.  The egcs project uses a new
scheduler which is a big win for certain architectures, such as Pentium,
RS/6000 and HP/PA.>>


Also, it was my understanding that although the new scheduler is indeed
technically attractive, it is not yet stable or reliable, and the egcs
project is working hard to iron out the bugs, so the present tense is
not quite appropriate here -- though of course the work to smooth out
the wrinkles in this new scheduler may well be very worth while in the
long run. I had also heard there were some assignment problems, is that
still the case .... if not great!

egcs (Re: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Marinos J. Yannikos]

In article <EF8J6w.7pv@kithrup.com>, Mike Stump wrote:
>[...]
>This is now false.  See the egcs project at Cygnus at:
>
>	http://www.cygnus.com/egcs

This is an admirable initiative. However, I wish fewer people would waste
their efforts on languages where good compiler support already exists on
all platforms. It would be much more interesting to build an optimizing
Java->native code compiler. There's just not much of a point in trying
to make a C compiler generate 5-10% faster code, if there's an opportunity
for a Java compiler to generate perhaps 5-6 times faster code than current 
JIT compiling virtual machines.

I liked C, but I've grown to dislike it after the umpteenth security hole
in Linux because of a buffer overflow or careless programming.

So, any takers?

-nino
-- 
Please change the last part of my address to "at" if you're replying by mail.
``it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice''

Re: egcs (Re: what DOES the GPL really say?)

[Andreas Schwab]

Marinos J Yannikos <nino@complang.tuwien.ac.look-in-sig> writes:

|> In article <EF8J6w.7pv@kithrup.com>, Mike Stump wrote:
|>> [...]
|>> This is now false.  See the egcs project at Cygnus at:
|>> 
|>> 	http://www.cygnus.com/egcs

|> This is an admirable initiative. However, I wish fewer people would waste
|> their efforts on languages where good compiler support already exists on
|> all platforms. It would be much more interesting to build an optimizing
|> Java->native code compiler. There's just not much of a point in trying
|> to make a C compiler generate 5-10% faster code, if there's an opportunity
|> for a Java compiler to generate perhaps 5-6 times faster code than current 
|> JIT compiling virtual machines.

A good GNU C compiler will also help a future GNU Java compiler, because
the back end will be shared.
-- 
Andreas Schwab                                      "And now for something
schwab@issan.informatik.uni-dortmund.de              completely different"

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> <<Apparently, with GNAT one cannot always get "the software" (e.g., the
> "current product release" of GNAT) for less money from someone else,
> because of policies like Cygnus' or ACT's whereby they'll threaten to
> quit doing business with you if you exercise your "right".
> >>
> 
> This is pure fantasy, ACT has at no time threatened to quit doing
> business with anyone for any reason.

If "doing business" includes getting "wavefront releases", then you
openly admit that this isn't a "pure fantasy"?

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> <<So, if one of your "wavefront" customers started giving me copies and
> I proceeded to make them available for anonymous ftp, you wouldn't
> retaliate?>>
> 
> If people started distributing wavefront versions freely, then w would
> probably reluctantly decide to stop making them available, since it would
> be clear that their distribution was harmful. That would be too bad for
> the cases where they really solve a problem.

It would appear that the answer is a resounding "yes"!

Oh, and I openly challenge your fictitious notion that free
distribution of your "wavefronts" would be harmful.  If the very
existance of freely available GPL'd (unwarrantied) software were
harmful in some way, I'm quite sure that Stallman would have written
the GPL in such a way as to allow for its nullification in those
circumstances.  But, since it's so clear to you, perhaps you'd care to
elucidate?  And please, feel free to compare/contrast with the
"harmful" Linux kernel development releases...

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole says

<<Oh, and I openly challenge your fictitious notion that free
distribution of your "wavefronts" would be harmful.  If the very
existance of freely available GPL'd (unwarrantied) software were
harmful in some way, I'm quite sure that Stallman would have written
the GPL in such a way as to allow for its nullification in those
circumstances.>>


There is a very important difference between unwarrantied sotware and
unreliable software, in fact the two concepts are pretty much unrelated,
and I think this is probably clear to most CLA readers. There is warrantied
software that is unreliable, and there is unwarrantied software that is
reliable. ACT works hard to make sure that the publicly available vesions
of GNAT fall into the second category.

Occasionally, in the context of a specific customer with support, the
use of a non-fully tested wavefront version to solve a specific problem
is justifiable, however in our view, it would most definitely be harmful
to have such versions wandering around. It would cause a lot of confusion,
and result in a negative impression of GNAT that would in our view be
harmful to the GNAT project. Some potential users of free software are
definitely concerned, because they assume that the free software scene
is as Ronald would like to paint it, with all sorts of people making
changes to the software in an uncontrolled manner.

The best way to think of ACT is to think of it like any other software
vendor who is aiming at reliable releases. We test carefully, and release
only when we think the time is right. We are no more about to distribute
our modifications without full testing than any other company. The one
difference, which as I have said many times before we are committed to
continuing, is that GNAT releases will continue to be made publicly
available. Yes, these public releases will lag a little behind the most
super duper version available at ACT in some cases -- something that
you could say about any releases of any software, but we think that
even with this small lag, you will see GNAT technology that is significantly
ahead of the proprietary competition.

Yes, we understand that the enthusiasts around (like Ronald, but it would
be a mistake to assume that all enthusisasts share all Ronald's opinions)
would like to be able to fiddle with the latest versions of everything all
the time, and do not care about reliability. However, this is not the
market place we are addressing. The market place we *are* addressing is
serious large projects needing support, and at the same time, consistent
with this primary goal, we want to support the use of GNAT in teaching
and casual use, since we think that it plays an important part in the
continuing spread of Ada 95. We do in fact put in quite a bit of effort
in making GNAT suitable for such purposes, and are delighted to see it
being used widely for teaching at many universities, and also at the
Air Force Academy.

ACT has established a set of policies for handling GNAT releases that
concentrate first and foremost on providing high reliability. The continued
availability of sources will satisfy many other needs, though we certainly
do not expect to be able to satisfy everyone's needs, and in particular,
no matter how often and loudly Ronald (or others) yell, we do not intend
to adopt a policy of freely releasing insuffiently tested software.

I think that from our point of view, enough has been said in this thread
which has not been a particularly productive one, and this will act as
our final statement in the matter. If anyone is interested in asking
specific questions about GNAT or the associated release policies, they
are welcome to follow up with email questions to me, or to sales@gna.com
as appropriate (oops that should be sales@gnat.com -- that's one word
that should be spelled correctly, even if my T key is sticking!)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

P.S. we froze the 3.10b sources a few days ago, and they are now undergoing
final testing. The 3.10p public release will be based on 3.10b, and will
follow very shortly if no significant problems appear.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

Excellent filibuster, Robert!  Not only, didn't you answer my
challenge, but you aptly demonstrated that you still couldn't be
bothered to actually read what I've been writing!!

Still, you post some directly verifiable "policies" of ACT.  Let's see
how they fair, eh?

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> There is warrantied
> software that is unreliable, and there is unwarrantied software that is
> reliable. ACT works hard to make sure that the publicly available vesions
> of GNAT fall into the second category.

"Publicly available versions of GNAT are reliable".  Please define
"reliable", Robert.  I've already demonstrated that by following your
own meticulous instructions, that public version 3.09 was unable to
bootstrap itself with the binary release due to a bad bug fix you
chose to include just a day before you made the release.

> Yes, we understand that the enthusiasts around (like Ronald...)
> do not care about reliability.

On the contrary, Robert!  Concern about the "reliability" of your
public releases is what prompted my first post on the subject!

> ACT has established a set of policies for handling GNAT releases that
> concentrate first and foremost on providing high reliability.

Which policy was it that allowed you to place a bug fix in a public
release that was clearly untested by your myriad of customers on the
HPUX platform, and which clearly had to come to the attention of the
ACT employee that performed the HPUX port?

> I think that from our point of view, enough has been said in this thread
> which has not been a particularly productive one, and this will act as
> our final statement in the matter.

If your 3.10 HPUX binary release can compile every file in the 3.10
source distribution with at least -O optimization to create a
byte-identical copy of gnat1, then I would have to say that part of
this thread was *very* productive.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ted Goldblatt]

In article <hjb-3008970231180001@chaos.dial.idiom.com>,
Hwa-Jin Bae <hjb@pso.com> wrote:
>In practice, the whole GPL issue seems to be pointless.
>For example, Wind River Systems, a maker of VxWorks
>ships modified versions of GDB as part of their
>Tornado products.  Does anyone outside Wind River Systems
>have source code for this special version of GDB?  Nope.
>Do they make it avaialble as part of normal GDB release?
>Nope.  Does Cygnus (who did the work under contract to
>Wind River) make an issue of this fact?  nope.

I question the "Does anyone outside Wind River Systems have source
code for this special version of GDB?" statement.  We use Tornado,
(with no special source license) and _we_ have the source to all of
the modified GNU tools (it was included on the release CDROM).  The
top level source dir includes the normal COPYING file.  An example of
one of the VxWorks specific source files starts off:

   /* MIPS-dependent portions of the RPC protocol
      used with a VxWorks target 
 
   Contributed by Wind River Systems.
 
   This file is part of GDB.
 
   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
   the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
   (at your option) any later version.

and so on.  It is certainly likely that WRS wouldn't go out of their
way to ship all this to you without you being a customer, but there is
no indication that I see that they would attempt to prevent a customer
from passing it on.  (It's also likely that the changes aren't of much
use to anyone not running Tornado, and since the "current" gdb is 4.16
(I believe) and the latest Tornado ships with a 4.12 variant, I'm not
sure who would want it, but...).

Certainly, they don't seem to ship source for Crosswind, which is
their graphical gdb front-end, but I wouldn't really expect that (much
as I might like it).

I don't want to be a WRS apologist (there's much they do that I don't
like), but this particular brush seems an odd one to tar them with.

ted
-- 
Ted Goldblatt    Ted.Goldblatt@telematics.com     (954) 351-4367
    Telematics Intl., Inc.   Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Hwa-Jin Bae]

ted@telematics.com (Ted Goldblatt) writes:

> We use Tornado,
>(with no special source license) and _we_ have the source to all of
>the modified GNU tools (it was included on the release CDROM).  

This is contrary to my experience, and contents of CD-ROMs that I
have access to.  However, the ones I have are perhaps one of the
earlier copies sold.  I no reason to disbelieve you, and you
sound like you know for sure.  Therefore, I would like to apologize
to all that I have unjustly accused of wrongdoings.  I make
this public apology on the basis that given your experience
and mine, you have a different experience with Tornado than me.
And I am willing to consider that I might have been wrong biased
by circumstances that indicated otherwise.  I am very glad that the 
GNU tools are accompanied with source code.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ted Goldblatt]

In article <5uhjr4$i2o@idiom.com>, Hwa-Jin Bae <chaos@idiom.com> wrote:
>ted@telematics.com (Ted Goldblatt) writes:
>
>> We use Tornado,
>>(with no special source license) and _we_ have the source to all of
>>the modified GNU tools (it was included on the release CDROM).  
>
>This is contrary to my experience, and contents of CD-ROMs that I
>have access to.  However, the ones I have are perhaps one of the
>earlier copies sold.  I no reason to disbelieve you, and you
>sound like you know for sure.

The GNU source is not installed by default, and I'll admit that it
isn't obvious how to find it (I had to call WRS customer support to
get the instructions).  I don't know about earlier versions, but
Tornado 1.0.1 at least uses a Windoze-ish install tool that lets you
select which of the items you are licensed for you wish to install.
Part of this selector menu includes a "details" button (which is
intended to allow you to "fine-tune" a selection).  If you select
Tornado and details, you are given a list that includes the Tornado
pieces and the GNU source (and perhaps some other pieces, I don't
remember off hand).  The Tornado pieces are selected by default, the
GNU source is not.  One could easily argue that they made this harder
to find than it should be (I did to the customer support person), but
it is definitely there.

ted
-- 
Ted Goldblatt    Ted.Goldblatt@telematics.com     (954) 351-4367
    Telematics Intl., Inc.   Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Hwa-Jin Bae]

ted@telematics.com (Ted Goldblatt) writes:
>The GNU source is not installed by default, and I'll admit that it
>isn't obvious how to find it (I had to call WRS customer support to
>get the instructions).  I don't know about earlier versions, but
>Tornado 1.0.1 at least uses a Windoze-ish install tool that lets you
>select which of the items you are licensed for you wish to install.

I think this was the source of confusion.  I have an earlier
release (1.0) and it did not have code on CD-ROM, nor did it
have optional boxes to click on to install the code.  I suppose
many people have made noise about this issue and now we have
a newer release that has source code on the CD-ROM that can
optionally be installed. (1.0.1) In any case, I'm glad that 
WRS is shipping the source code now.  I have no more complaints.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Hwa-Jin Bae said

<<I think this was the source of confusion.  I have an earlier
release (1.0) and it did not have code on CD-ROM, nor did it
have optional boxes to click on to install the code.  I suppose
many people have made noise about this issue and now we have
a newer release that has source code on the CD-ROM that can
optionally be installed. (1.0.1) In any case, I'm glad that
WRS is shipping the source code now.>>

It sounds like you were under the misconception that the souce code
must be shipped together with the object code for GPL'ed software.
This is not the case. If you receive GPL'ed software, then source
must be available, but not necessarily with the object distribution.

Whoever gives you the program has the responsibility of letting you
know how to get the sources. If you pass on GPL'ed software you need
to take responsibility for making sure that the recipient knows where
the sources are. For instance, when I make GNAT available to my
students in a special distribution for them that is conveniently
set up, I do not include the sources, but I tell them where the
sources can be found.

The original manufacturer is responsible only for providing this information
to those to whom they distribute the original program. The GPL comes with
rights and responsibilities. The right is to further distribute the program,
the responsibility is to distribute it in a manner that is consistent with
the requirements of the GPL. If you find this onerous, then no one is forcing
you to further distribute the program, so don't do it!

In this case, I don't know if you got the code from the manufacturer or not.
If so, you should have contacted the manufacturer, and you would have found
that indeed you could obtain the sources (I do not know if they were charging
for this service or not at the time, as I have mentioned before, it is fine
to charge for distribution of souces, providing the charge is reasonable).

<<I have no more complaints>>

It sounds like you never did have a legitimate complaint, and certainly
your conclusion that no manufacturers take the GPL seriously was entirely
unwarranted. You should be careful about accusing people of violating
contracts without a little more research on your part!

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Ted said

<<The GNU source is not installed by default, and I'll admit that it
isn't obvious how to find it (I had to call WRS customer support to
get the instructions).  I don't know about earlier versions, but
Tornado 1.0.1 at least uses a Windoze-ish install tool that lets you
select which of the items you are licensed for you wish to install.
Part of this selector menu includes a "details" button (which is
intended to allow you to "fine-tune" a selection).  If you select
Tornado and details, you are given a list that includes the Tornado
pieces and the GNU source (and perhaps some other pieces, I don't
remember off hand).  The Tornado pieces are selected by default, the
GNU source is not.  One could easily argue that they made this harder
to find than it should be (I did to the customer support person), but
it is definitely there.>>


"harder to find than it should be"

By what standards, the GPL does not say that it has to be super easy to
get the sources, the only restriction it places is that you cannot charge
more than a copying fee for them, but it would certainly be in bounds to
say that the sources are available on request on CD ROM for a payment of
$X with a delivery time of Y weeks (as long as X and Y were reasonable,
where the only person who gets to complain about reasonable is the
copyright holder -- that's important to realize, as with any copyrighted
work, it is the copyright holder who has the sole course of action here.
If you find something you don't like about the way someone is handling
some GPL'ed software, you should complain to the copyright holder, who
may or may not agree that there is a problem, and may or may not do
something about it.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ted Goldblatt]

In article <dewar.873499941@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Ted said
>
><<The GNU source is not installed by default, and I'll admit that it
>isn't obvious how to find it (I had to call WRS customer support to
>get the instructions).
[snip]
>One could easily argue that they made this harder
>to find than it should be (I did to the customer support person), but
>it is definitely there.>>

>"harder to find than it should be"
>
>By what standards, the GPL does not say that it has to be super easy to
>get the sources, the only restriction it places is that you cannot charge
>more than a copying fee for them, but it would certainly be in bounds to
>say that the sources are available on request on CD ROM for a payment of
>$X with a delivery time of Y weeks (as long as X and Y were reasonable,
>where the only person who gets to complain about reasonable is the
>copyright holder -- that's important to realize, as with any copyrighted
>work, it is the copyright holder who has the sole course of action here.
>If you find something you don't like about the way someone is handling
>some GPL'ed software, you should complain to the copyright holder, who
>may or may not agree that there is a problem, and may or may not do
>something about it.

You may have missed an earlier article in this thread.  Wind River doesn't
say that "the sources are available on request on CD ROM for a payment of
$X", they _include_ the sources on the normal Tornado release CDROM.  By
"harder than it should be", I meant that they neglected to say this, or
to say how you install them from the CDROM, in any of the release notes
or installation documentation.  This may actually be an accidental violation
of the GPL, but that's irrelevant.  I was not accusing WRS of violating the
GPL - if anything, I was defending them from such a charge.  However, their
oversight (I'll assume it was such) actually was a problem _for WRS_, since
I (and I assume others) were forced to call their customer service line to
get the info, and such calls cost them money.  So it is really in their
(WRS's) best interest to make this "easy".

ted
-- 
Ted Goldblatt    Ted.Goldblatt@telematics.com     (954) 351-4367
    Telematics Intl., Inc.   Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Mark Wooding]

Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:

> By what standards, the GPL does not say that it has to be super easy to
> get the sources, the only restriction it places is that you cannot charge
> more than a copying fee for them, but it would certainly be in bounds to
> say that the sources are available on request on CD ROM for a payment of
> $X with a delivery time of Y weeks (as long as X and Y were reasonable,
> where the only person who gets to complain about reasonable is the
> copyright holder

Which GPL did you read?  The one I've got here says:

  3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

    ...

    b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
    years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
    cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
    machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
    distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
    customarily used for software interchange; or,

    ...

The `cost of physically performing source distribution' sounds a good
deal less than `reasonable, where the only person who gets to complain
about reasonable is the copyright holder' to me.  Perhaps this is just
me getting things wrong, but charging much more than media and postage
costs for a source distribution looks like a violation of the licence to
me.

I suspect that the intent behind the words of this particular section is
to ensure that once you've got a distribution of GPL-ed-program `foo' of
any kind, you shouldn't have to pay any more for the /right/ to have the
sources for `foo', but only for the physical process of getting hold of
the appropriate data.  (This is dangerous territory, and I know it:
trying to read between the lines of a document as carefully worded as
the GPL is tricky.)
-- 
[mdw]

`It can't rain all the time.'
		-- Eric Draven

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Isaac]

In article <slrn4618ep8.uvl.mdw@venus.ebi.ac.uk>, Mark Wooding wrote:
>The `cost of physically performing source distribution' sounds a good
>deal less than `reasonable, where the only person who gets to complain
>about reasonable is the copyright holder' to me.  Perhaps this is just
>me getting things wrong, but charging much more than media and postage
>costs for a source distribution looks like a violation of the licence to
>me.
>
I would think that they could charge for all of their costs in providing
you the source including packaging, 'handling' etc.  I don't think 
they are obligated to lose money getting you the source, they just
can't make money.   You might not be able to tell whether they are turning
a profit getting you the source.

To try to head off out of context replies, I'll reiterate that this 
discussion is about a distributor of gpl'd binaries who elects to ship
source on request rather than with the product.  Someone who ships 
binary with the product can charge as much as they can get.

Isaac

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Hwa-Jin Bae says

<<This is contrary to my experience, and contents of CD-ROMs that I
have access to.  However, the ones I have are perhaps one of the
earlier copies sold.  I no reason to disbelieve you, and you
sound like you know for sure.  Therefore, I would like to apologize
to all that I have unjustly accused of wrongdoings.  I make
this public apology on the basis that given your experience
and mine, you have a different experience with Tornado than me.
And I am willing to consider that I might have been wrong biased
by circumstances that indicated otherwise.  I am very glad that the
GNU tools are accompanied with source code.>>


Once again, there is no requirement that GNU tools be "accompanied" by
source code. The rule is (see GPL for full text), that either you must
distribute the sources along with the objects, or make them available
on request (and the distribution should give details of how to make
such a request).

You may or may not have to pay a copying charge for such a request. That
is up to the person distributing the program.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Hwa-Jin Bae <hjb@pso.com> wrote:
>In practice, the whole GPL issue seems to be pointless.
>For example, Wind River Systems, a maker of VxWorks
>ships modified versions of GDB as part of their
>Tornado products.  Does anyone outside Wind River Systems
>have source code for this special version of GDB?  Nope.
>Do they make it avaialble as part of normal GDB release?
>Nope.  Does Cygnus (who did the work under contract to
>Wind River) make an issue of this fact?  nope.


This is complete nonsense as far as I can determine. Certainly everyone
I know in the free software business takes the GPL very seriously, and
any allegations to the contrary need substantiation rather than vague
claims like the above. The Free Software Foundation, which holds the
copyright in this case (rather than Cygnus) would certainly pursue
any such violations of the GPL. But in this case, the sources are
most definitely available according to the requirements of the GPL,
so there is no problem.

Please note that the GPL does NOT require that the sources be made
available for free downloading or anything like that. It is quite
OK for example to make sources available only on diskettes, and
to charge a copying fee for them.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

Chris Morgan <mihalis@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> Is this true or is it just your assumption? 

You can read Dewar's own words on the subject because they are archived
at DejaNews and several other sites.

> Now consider this : if you then
> had problems with it what would you do? Would you send bug reports in to
> ACT? How might this work? I'll use my imagination, and I have decided to
> let it be as creative as yours in characterising other people's
> positions (perhaps this will raise a smile with the lurkers) :

Like Dewar, you appear to mistake a bug report with a request for free
support.  Any conclusions you make based on your incorrect assumptions
are quite suspect.

> Just because rms works to his interpretation of the Golden Rule, doesn't
> mean you have the right to hold him to your (differing) interpretation :
> "I don't agree with your interpretation of your own words, and I accuse
> you of being a hypocrite since you aren't following my version" - is
> this right?

Please provide an alternate interpretation of Stallman's words, then.
I am unable to come up with a coherent one, but that doesn't mean
there isn't one.  Care to give it a shot?

> Again, my view is that the Golden Rule is the big picture, the gpl is
> the details, so the golden rule does not need to be brought up to spec.
> It's like wanting a University to update its motto because you're
> unhappy with its exam marking.

Classic example of "constipation of the brain, diarrhea of the mouth".

> This is a very tricky issue here. Depending on ones prejudices (and I
> have a full complement) one might feel that the Linux "project" has only
> succeeded so astonishingly well because of the advanced state of the GNU
> software it incorporates (but this is highy inflammatory to some). gcc
> is certainly crucial to the kernel, but of course all those device
> drivers, the networking code, the X-Window System were important as
> well. Let's say it is the case, then in that case Linux can't really be
> used as a counter-example to my "some pragmatism needed" view. Also, I'm
> not sure if Linux can be such a good example in any case since large
> chunks of it are also gpled.

Sorry, Charlie.  When I speak of "Linux", I am speaking of the kernel.
I am quite content to call the rest of the software on my Slackware CD
"The GNU System".

> Is this the tragedy of the commons thing you mention in another posting?
> I am already aware of that, however I think rms's key insight is the
> essential difference between physical things and software. A difference
> hidden and denied by standard commercial practice. When I use the GNU
> software to the fullest extent possible, I don't remove any benefit you
> might get from it, so it's not really plundered at all.

It's plundered if you monopolize enhancements to it (since the goal of
the software "commons" is to advance the state of the art sans
licensing restrictions).  If Dewar really needs to monopolize GNAT to
stay competitive, I believe that he shouldn't be using gcc to get him
there.

>  I believe that
> > allowing ACT and Cygnus to leverage GCC to create new versions of GNU
> > software to order to sell binaries to clients before releasing the
> > source to the public is tantamount to encouraging the plundering of
> > free software.  The GPL is not much better than public domain in this
> > regard.
> 
> I don't agree. The fact that ACT and Cygnus earn money from the software
> means that _much_ more work on the software gets done. Sonner or later
> you get all the benefit.

More later than sooner.  Locate and read Eric S. Raymond's "The Cathedral
and the Bazaar".  It's quite a good read.

> We know what your objection is but you
> constantly conflate the delaying of releases of the latest versions with
> a desire to hoard it indefinitely. I notice you use the word tantamount.
> To me this suggests you wouldn't actually accuse them of "grand larceny
> GNU", you just accuse them of doing something a bit like it and then say
> how bad the thing they aren't doing would be. "You looked at my
> doughnut, that is tantamount to cruelly depriving me of food, how does
> that square with your statement many years ago that we should fight
> hunger?"

The GPL says that you cannot impose any further restrictions on the
recipients' exercise of the rights granted by it.  Isn't making the
threat of not doing business with a client who exercises those rights
an imposition of further restrictions?  Especially so if you own a
monopoly on the current product releases?

> They have obtained whatever their supposed advantage is by producing the
> software in the first place, they will always be better placed
> practically speaking to develop GNAT. The development that was funded by
> the government is fully available. Development funded by ACTs paying
> customers is also fully available up until some cut-off point earlier
> this year where 3.9 was deemed stable enough for public release. At this
> stage then, this supposed unfair advantage consists solely of the
> changes and additions they have made in about 6 months of work. So, get
> going now and in about a year or two you could eradicate this advantage
> and free gnat from their cruel imprisonment. Go to it!

You haven't actually read the Manifesto, have you?  One of the beneficial
goals of GNU was that "much wasteful duplication of system programming
effort will be avoided ... [in order to advance] the state of the art".
Why would you suggest that I do something to slow that advancement?

> > He wrote that he was "required to consider it wrong" and yet
> > now he appears to tolerate it.
> 
> Only under your interpretation of events.

I've tried to get Stallman to clarify.  He hasn't yet.

> Some monopoly.

You are incorrectly generalizing what I've been saying.  ACT's monopoly
is in the "current product release", which Dewar admitted they sell to
their customers and then release at some indefinite time in the future.

Aladdin Enterprises does the same thing, but since ghostscript is
entirely Aladdin's I don't have a problem with that.  GNAT is
based on the GPL'd technology in gcc.

> If you take away the support component (which is what ACT really sells)
> then this "product" is worth less, possibly much less - it may have some
> better features but there is much less evidence that it is stable. Now
> Prof. Dewar is clearly under no obligation (implied or otherwise) to
> provide you with the aforementioned level of support (unless you buy a
> support contract) so all you are left with is the unproven wavefront.

It doesn't appear that you've read the GPL either ("Also, for each
author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone
understands that there is no warranty for this free software.")

> The combined package is the product, one piece of it on its own is
> simply beta software. And it's not mere word games as you yourself have
> discovered, as you were tipped up by the wake of a placidly cruising
> public release for HP-UX, so imagine how wet you could get with an
> unsupported wavefront!

Please stop making up "facts".  I reported an hppa optimizer bug in
the 3.09 release, which Dewar admitted to not reading, and yet Dewar
(incorrectly) interpreted it as a request for "free support".  He then
"suggested" that I become a customer because "most of [ACT's HPUX
customers] have by now switched to 3.10 which is the current product
release".

After I sent email to Stallman asking for clarification, Dewar did
some serious back-pedaling and offered up his company "policies" which
didn't appear to stand up to close scrutiny when compared to the
public 3.09 release.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Chris Morgan]

Ronald Cole wrote:

> You can read Dewar's own words on the subject because they are archived
> at DejaNews and several other sites.

It's ok, I read them, all of them, at the time.

> Like Dewar, you appear to mistake a bug report with a request for free
> support.  Any conclusions you make based on your incorrect assumptions
> are quite suspect.

Well it seems to me you wanted more than the ability to send an email to
report@gnat.com, for example an acknowledgement and possibly advice on
what had gone wrong in your build. If not why did you engage in noisy
public debate on the matter.

> Please provide an alternate interpretation of Stallman's words, then.
> I am unable to come up with a coherent one, but that doesn't mean
> there isn't one.  Care to give it a shot?

No, I don't care to try this at all. The reason is that to me you are
simply not rewarding to argue with. For example I think you twist other
peoples words constantly, you are gratuitously rude and insulting, you
lack any kind of respect for or knowledge of the people you are
publically defaming and yet you expect some kind of response from them
when you call them hypocrites and liars.

> 
> > Again, my view is that the Golden Rule is the big picture, the gpl is
> > the details, so the golden rule does not need to be brought up to spec.
> > It's like wanting a University to update its motto because you're
> > unhappy with its exam marking.
> 
> Classic example of "constipation of the brain, diarrhea of the mouth".

Good point, well argued, you're doing well.


> Sorry, Charlie.  When I speak of "Linux", I am speaking of the kernel.
> I am quite content to call the rest of the software on my Slackware CD
> "The GNU System".

Ok. 

> 
> > Is this the tragedy of the commons thing you mention in another posting?
> > I am already aware of that, however I think rms's key insight is the
> > essential difference between physical things and software. A difference
> > hidden and denied by standard commercial practice. When I use the GNU
> > software to the fullest extent possible, I don't remove any benefit you
> > might get from it, so it's not really plundered at all.
> 
> It's plundered if you monopolize enhancements to it (since the goal of
> the software "commons" is to advance the state of the art sans
> licensing restrictions).  If Dewar really needs to monopolize GNAT to
> stay competitive, I believe that he shouldn't be using gcc to get him
> there.


Fine, but that's just a matter of opinion. You have acknowledged that
ACT are not infringing the GPL, so now you're down to loudly saying "I
don't like what you are doing". Mr Cole, I don't like what _you_ are
doing.



> More later than sooner.  Locate and read Eric S. Raymond's "The Cathedral
> and the Bazaar".  It's quite a good read.

I'm sure it is. I have read a good deal of the discussions on various
newsgroups regarding FSF vs. Cygnus, Linux vs. RMS etc. There are a lot
of  differences of opinion on the matter across all parts of the free
software spectrum so no book you refer me to can possibly prove
something conclusively. I have my opinion on the matter.


> The GPL says that you cannot impose any further restrictions on the
> recipients' exercise of the rights granted by it.  Isn't making the
> threat of not doing business with a client who exercises those rights
> an imposition of further restrictions?  Especially so if you own a
> monopoly on the current product releases?

Irrelevant. No such threat has ever been made.


> You haven't actually read the Manifesto, have you?  One of the beneficial
> goals of GNU was that "much wasteful duplication of system programming
> effort will be avoided ... [in order to advance] the state of the art".
> Why would you suggest that I do something to slow that advancement?

You are wrong, I have read the manifesto.

I am suggesting that this supposed unfair advantage ACT have by
"hoarding" GNAT 3.10 would be wafer-thin if it were really only the
differences between 3.9 and 3.10, so for the sake of a little wasted
effort you the heroic idealist could remove their advantage once and for
all. A little like RMS destroying the commercial Lisp machine market for
months and months by reverse engineering every new feature.

I was trying to use irony to highlight this completely and utterly
ludicrous idea. You missed it.

Here it is again.

The "unfair advantage" ACT have is they are all compiler wizards who
know GNAT inside out and backwards and have endless years of experience
at this work. They make money by offering excellent support, not by
hoarding. You dislike their policy on GNAT releases but it is allowed by
the GPL and approved by Stallman. That's good enough for me and nearly
every other serious GNAT user.


> 
> > > He wrote that he was "required to consider it wrong" and yet
> > > now he appears to tolerate it.
> >
> > Only under your interpretation of events.
> 
> I've tried to get Stallman to clarify.  He hasn't yet.

I agree that a clarification might be helpful. However why should he do
anything to clarify things for you?

> 
> > Some monopoly.
> 
> You are incorrectly generalizing what I've been saying.  

Well I'm glad to hear that you don't like incorrect generalising. I have
repeatedly said that I find your characterisation of what I and others
say to be incorrect so perhaps you should examine what you write more
carefully.

ACT's monopoly
> is in the "current product release", which Dewar admitted they sell to
> their customers and then release at some indefinite time in the future.

No, he did not admit any such thing.

> 
> Aladdin Enterprises does the same thing, but since ghostscript is
> entirely Aladdin's I don't have a problem with that.  GNAT is
> based on the GPL'd technology in gcc.

ACT do not sell GNAT. How many times do you plan to make false
statements about this? I told you that any ACT customer could legally
and ethically give you a wavefront. But nobody is required to. My view
is that in many ways you are the perfect example of why keeping
work-in-progress software private is a good idea. Nevertheless, I also
said I wish I or someone else could give it to you (but I certainly
can't as I don't have it).


> It doesn't appear that you've read the GPL either ("Also, for each
> author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone
> understands that there is no warranty for this free software.")

Wrong again. I have read the GPL. It is quite tedious and I don't care
about it enough to argue trivia with you. I care about what it is
protecting, and it seems to be working. If nobody but you thinks it has
been infringed then I don't really care about any statements you make to
the contrary. ACT don't claim to provide a warrantee anyway, they just
fix anything that breaks for a paying customer.

> 
> > The combined package is the product, one piece of it on its own is
> > simply beta software. And it's not mere word games as you yourself have
> > discovered, as you were tipped up by the wake of a placidly cruising
> > public release for HP-UX, so imagine how wet you could get with an
> > unsupported wavefront!
> 
> Please stop making up "facts".  I reported an hppa optimizer bug in
> the 3.09 release, 

It was the public release right? And you tried to build it with
non-standard gcc settings right? If the preceding is true then which
facts do you accuse me of making up?


which Dewar admitted to not reading, and yet Dewar
> (incorrectly) interpreted it as a request for "free support".  

If you didn't want support then you should have just sent a message to
report@gnat.com and then got back to work. I also interpreted your
actual course of action as a request (more like demand) for support. If
you are not asking for support then the situation is quite simple. You
received some software licensed under the GPL. It has some problems. You
are not happy about them. That's it. There is nothing more to say,
suggestions of lies, hypocrisy, selling out or suchlike are just a load
of hot air.


He then
> "suggested" that I become a customer because "most of [ACT's HPUX
> customers] have by now switched to 3.10 which is the current product
> release".

This is an unfortunate choice of words. If you take Prof Dewars repeated
statements about GNAT and ACT as a whole, the more correct form of words
might be (using my interpretation adding words like _this_, and I'm sure
he will correct me if I am wrong) "most of [ACT's HPUX customers] have
by now switched to 3.10 _wavefront_ which _with our support_ is the
current product release". He could have added that for some customers
the 3.09 release plus their support is the current product release as I
know of at least one company that does not use wavefronts when the most
recent public release will do the job instead.


> 
> After I sent email to Stallman asking for clarification, Dewar did
> some serious back-pedaling and offered up his company "policies" which
> didn't appear to stand up to close scrutiny when compared to the
> public 3.09 release.

As I said, I agree with you that there is an unfortunate implication in
the choice of words he made. However, some back-pedalling is allowable,
after all I seem to remember you accusing ACT of GPL infringement at one
point which you have learnt is not true. 

Anyway, irrespective of who said what when, ACTs actions speak for
themselves, they are another magnificent example of the truly great Free
Software movement, and you only further alienate all the people who
share your interest in GNU software, Ada etc with almost every posting
you make on this subject.

Chris

-- 
Chris Morgan <mihalis @ ix.netcom.com>
  "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,"

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

<<Well it seems to me you wanted more than the ability to send an email to
report@gnat.com, for example an acknowledgement and possibly advice on
what had gone wrong in your build. If not why did you engage in noisy
public debate on the matter.>>

Everyone sending email to report@gnat.com should most certainly get an
acknowledgement, sent by a person, not a program. If you do not receive
a response, probably some email has gone astray (sometimes we get bounces
on reply attempts due to faulty headers, use of anti-spam addresses etc.
For customers we can sort these ou from our customer records, but sometimes
for non-supported users we just can't figure out how to reply successfully).

Don't expect an immediate acknowledgement if you are an unsupported user,
it can sometimes take a few days. And also, that's about all we can do
for unsupported user reports (thank you for submitting them, note that
we will eventually look at them, and point you to our support department
if you need priority support, or to chat@gnat.com if you do not).

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

P.S. we really do eventually look at all reports. 3.10 for example contains
many examples of fixes for reported problems from unsupported users, and
also new features suggested by unsupported users of GNAT. We appreciate
the help that we get from these reports and suggestions.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

Chris Morgan <mihalis@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> Ronald Cole wrote:
> > You can read Dewar's own words on the subject because they are archived
> > at DejaNews and several other sites.
>
> It's ok, I read them, all of them, at the time.
>
> > Like Dewar, you appear to mistake a bug report with a request for free
> > support.  Any conclusions you make based on your incorrect assumptions
> > are quite suspect.
>
> Well it seems to me you wanted more than the ability to send an email to
> report@gnat.com, for example an acknowledgement and possibly advice on
> what had gone wrong in your build. If not why did you engage in noisy
> public debate on the matter.

If you read them, then you saw that I began the thread by asking Dewar
if the public release of 3.10 for HPUX is going to be as bad as the
3.09 release was, and that Dewar claimed that the public release of
3.09 had no problems whatsoever on the HPUX platform: a statement
which is not only a lie, but provably incorrect.  The "noisy public
debate" was my proof.

> No, I don't care to try this at all. The reason is that to me you are
> simply not rewarding to argue with. For example I think you twist other
> peoples words constantly, you are gratuitously rude and insulting, you
> lack any kind of respect for or knowledge of the people you are
> publically defaming and yet you expect some kind of response from them
> when you call them hypocrites and liars.

Yes, if you can't attack my arguments then attack me.  I called Dewar
a liar because that is what he did, and I posted the references to
his conflicting statements to prove it...

> Fine, but that's just a matter of opinion. You have acknowledged that
> ACT are not infringing the GPL, so now you're down to loudly saying "I
> don't like what you are doing". Mr Cole, I don't like what _you_ are
> doing.

The GNU philosophy is not defined by the GPL.  What I've been loudly
saying is that "by making enhancements to GCC and distributing the
results strictly to paying customers *months* before even thinking of
making a public release is *hoarding*".  And I quoted Stallman from
the Manifesto as an authority on the GNU philosophy.  You just haven't
been listening.

> I'm sure it is. I have read a good deal of the discussions on various
> newsgroups regarding FSF vs. Cygnus, Linux vs. RMS etc. There are a lot
> of  differences of opinion on the matter across all parts of the free
> software spectrum so no book you refer me to can possibly prove
> something conclusively. I have my opinion on the matter.

And no cites to any authority to back up that opinion?  Sounds like
your opinions are less supportable than mine.

> Irrelevant. No such threat has ever been made.

Dewar wrote the following to Stallman (cc'd to me) on 6/25/97:

  "basically this is a case in which we want, within the bounds of the
  GPL, to discourage free distribution of wavefront sources"

and on 7/1/97, he posted this:

  "To clarify here, we tell customers that we think it is in the best
  interests of GNAT if prereleases and wavefronts are not released
  generally (for all the reasons I have previously stated), but that is
  absolutely right, we cannot require it."

A strange statement to make for a man who claims to strictly follow
the GPL both in letter *and in spirit*.  Can you tell me how one can
"discourage free distribution" without restricting free distribution
in some manner?

> The "unfair advantage" ACT have is they are all compiler wizards who
> know GNAT inside out and backwards and have endless years of experience
> at this work. They make money by offering excellent support, not by
> hoarding.

That's not what Dewar has said.  He clearly said that I couldn't get
3.10 without being a customer.  Furthermore, he also says, under
"Support Services" on his web page <http://www.gnat.com/maintain.html>,
that "Binary ports for the supported versions are immediately
available from ACT in electronic form that can be retrieved from ACT's
private repository."  So, clearly, ACT makes money by selling the
"current product release".  If they only sold support, why wouldn't
they want to distribute the "current product release" publicly (like
the Linux development kernels)?  After all, the GPL states that "we
want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no
warranty for this free software".

> You dislike their policy on GNAT releases but it is allowed by
> the GPL and approved by Stallman. That's good enough for me and nearly
> every other serious GNAT user.

Dewar didn't tell Stallman exactly what he told me.  Not surprising,
since Stallman's coming down on ACT could put a serious financial hurt
on his company.

> > ACT's monopoly
> > is in the "current product release", which Dewar admitted they sell to
> > their customers and then release at some indefinite time in the future.
> 
> No, he did not admit any such thing.

I thought you said you followed the thread...  You can't miss it.  He
started posting on 6/17/97 in comp.lang.ada and in several other posts
afterwards.

> ACT do not sell GNAT.  How many times do you plan to make false
> statements about this?

It's not a false statement.  The GPL allows ACT to sell GNAT
"wavefronts" and Dewar has said as much in email:

  "FOr customer releases, there are two cases. We make point releases (with
  versions like 3.10a in binary form, and these are always accompanied
  with source releases as for the public releases). For wavefront releases,
  we hae previously made sources available at no charge on request, but
  are now switching to a system of providing these on CD ROM and the release
  will include a written offer giving the price of this service (basically
  this is a case in which we want, within the bounds of the GPL, to
  discourage free distribution of wavefront sources. The charge for the  
  CD ROM of course reflects our costs in making the copy, no more."

You will note that 3.10 hasn't even seen a public release, let alone 3.10a.

> I told you that any ACT customer could legally
> and ethically give you a wavefront. But nobody is required to.

It's my hope that someone will do so.  I would make the wavefront
releases available in the same fashion that Linux development kernels
are.

> My view is that in many ways you are the perfect example of why
> keeping work-in-progress software private is a good
> idea. Nevertheless, I also said I wish I or someone else could give
> it to you (but I certainly can't as I don't have it).

I have a really hard time considering software that is at least stable
enough to support customers on in a "binary-only" distribution as a
"work-in-progress" (Of course, any actively developed software is
always a "work-in-progress", I am assuming you mean software of an
"alpha" nature.)

> Wrong again. I have read the GPL. It is quite tedious and I don't care
> about it enough to argue trivia with you. I care about what it is
> protecting, and it seems to be working.

What I meant was that you didn't appear to have "engrossed" the
Manifesto or the GPL, which I would consider a requirement before someone
could offer any type of "informed" opinion.

> It was the public release right?

Yes

> And you tried to build it with non-standard gcc settings right?

Not at all!  I strictly adhered to the procedure documented in the
public release.  If you had ever built a GNAT release or read Dewar's
posts in which he flames posters for not reading and following the
careful instructions he wrote and placed in the source release, you
would have observed this to be the case just from reading the thread.
Yet another example of your unwillingness to actually put statements
to the test.

> If the preceding is true then which facts do you accuse me of making up?

That my original post was a request for free support.  It would appear
that you are willing to just take Dewar's word for it; even long after
he openly admitted that he didn't even bother to read my posts!

> If you didn't want support then you should have just sent a message to
> report@gnat.com and then got back to work.

I did, back in February.  Didn't you read my post to that effect early
on in the thread?

> I also interpreted your
> actual course of action as a request (more like demand) for support.

Trying to "Read between the lines", eh?  That interpretation is quite
a stretch.

> If you are not asking for support then the situation is quite
> simple. You received some software licensed under the GPL. It has
> some problems. You are not happy about them. That's it. There is
> nothing more to say, suggestions of lies, hypocrisy, selling out or
> suchlike are just a load of hot air.

The GNU System was born of a philosophy.  My beef is two fold:

  1. the GPL doesn't embody the GNU philosophy (which negates
     the effect of having one in the first place), and
  2. that Stallman appears willing to only force people to follow
     certain parts of his philosophy if they want to distribute
     the GNU System.

> This is an unfortunate choice of words. If you take Prof Dewars repeated
> statements about GNAT and ACT as a whole, the more correct form of words
> might be (using my interpretation adding words like _this_, and I'm sure
> he will correct me if I am wrong) "most of [ACT's HPUX customers] have
> by now switched to 3.10 _wavefront_ which _with our support_ is the
> current product release". He could have added that for some customers
> the 3.09 release plus their support is the current product release as I
> know of at least one company that does not use wavefronts when the most
> recent public release will do the job instead.

I don't believe that Dewar is a man who is careless with his words.  I
think he meant exactly what he said at the time he said it.  Merging
truth with lies gets you some strange results (like the notion that a
GNAT release can't be "current product" without ACT's support, clearly
in opposition to the warranty sentiments in the GPL).

> As I said, I agree with you that there is an unfortunate implication in
> the choice of words he made. However, some back-pedalling is allowable,
> after all I seem to remember you accusing ACT of GPL infringement at one
> point which you have learnt is not true. 

Yes, I'm honorable enough to admit when I am wrong.  Dewar's
back-pedaling was an exercise in revisionist history, however.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m2sow5eng6.fsf@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> Ronald Cole <ronald@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> writes:
>> Irrelevant. No such threat has ever been made.
>
>and on 7/1/97, he posted this:
>
>  "To clarify here, we tell customers that we think it is in the best
>  interests of GNAT if prereleases and wavefronts are not released
>  generally (for all the reasons I have previously stated), but that is
>  absolutely right, we cannot require it."
>
>A strange statement to make for a man who claims to strictly follow
>the GPL both in letter *and in spirit*.  Can you tell me how one can
>"discourage free distribution" without restricting free distribution
>in some manner?

Discouraging something is not *restricting* it, at least in the sense
to which a legal document (like the GPL) means. 

I've said this before, but the analogy is the difference between
things that are considered rude by society and those that are
considered illegal.  The first set is always a significant superset of 
the latter.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:
> Discouraging something is not *restricting* it, at least in the sense
> to which a legal document (like the GPL) means. 
> I've said this before, but the analogy is the difference between
> things that are considered rude by society and those that are
> considered illegal.  The first set is always a significant superset of 
> the latter.

Oh, bullshit, Richard...  The GPL plainly says "To protect your
rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you
these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights."

It seems clear that "discouraging free distribution" is equivalent
in effect to asking you to surrender the right to distribute.

It seems clear because, if ACT's "wavefront" customers did exercise
their right to distribute, Dewar has posted that "[ACT] would probably
reluctantly decide to stop making them available".  Is this not
punishing a "wavefront" customer for exercising their right?

Any further objection from you, it would seem, would necessitate your
demonstrating that punishing individuals for exercising a right is not
the same as taking away that right away from individuals.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:
> In article <m2afi6t3xq.fsf@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> Ronald Cole <ronald@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> writes:
> >Oh, bullshit, Richard...  The GPL plainly says "To protect your
> >rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you
> >these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights."
> >
> >It seems clear that "discouraging free distribution" is equivalent
> >in effect to asking you to surrender the right to distribute.
> 
> That's correct, though I'd use the word "waive" rather than
> "surrender".

Dewar posted that he feels that he is within the "letter *and the
spirit*" of the GPL when he *asks* his "wavefront" customers not to
redistribute that which he distributes.  I, however, feel that by
doing so, he has violated the "spirit" of the GPL (since the quoted
clause is found in the preamble and doesn't appear to be present in
the enumerated sections).

> But the key point that this is *asking*, not *requiring*.

Still, the GPL says "To protect your rights, we need to make
restrictions that forbid anyone to ... *ask* you to surrender the
rights" and then fails to actually enumerate such a restriction (a
loophole which apparently both Stallman and Dewar use to discourage
"runaway snapshots").

Are we in agreement then (that the GPL needs to be made more
consistent; if not with the Manifesto, then at least with itself)?

On another subject, Dewar once stated that he had asked Stallman about
basing a public release of GNAT on one of the gcc snapshots, and the
resulting reaction was what swore him off of allowing wide
distribution of "wavefront" releases.  Now that the egcs project has
reared it's (ugly?  we'll wait and see) head, should Dewar consider
basing the next public release of GNAT upon an egcs snapshot?  (It
really would be nice to be able to build gcc, g++, f77, and GNAT from
a unified source tree without having to apply two differing patch
files and hoping for the best...)

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m2zpq0h7uc.fsf@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> Ronald Cole <ronald@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> writes:
>should Dewar consider basing the next public release of GNAT upon an egcs
>snapshot? 

I think you seriously misunderstand the purpose of the EGCS project,
which is to provide a framework within which highly experimental (and
known to be broken) patches to GCC can be developed and perfected.
Those patches are then fed into the normal GCC development process for
further testing and then become parts of GCC releases.

Nobody would want to build a public release of anything based on
software that, by its very design, has serious problems.  That's not
the purpose of this work.

>(It really would be nice to be able to build gcc, g++, f77, and GNAT from
>a unified source tree without having to apply two differing patch
>files and hoping for the best...)

As of the last (or next, I'm not sure of the precise schedule here)
g77 release, the g77 patch set includes all of the GNAT patches.
There is some question about whether the g77 patch set contains
patches that will break GNAT, but none of these patches are actually
required to build a correctly-functioning g77; they are to add
optimizations that are deemed important for Fortran users.  Some of
these optimizations are currently also being experimented with in the
EGCS project.

As far as we know, GCC 2.7.2 plus the patches supplied by GNAT, will
build a functioning g77, g++, and GNAT, with one exception, which relates
to a change in the front-end interface and is what either just has or
soon wil be addressed in the g77 release.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Toon Moene]

kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) wrote:

> As far as we know, GCC 2.7.2 plus the patches supplied by GNAT, will
> build a functioning g77, g++, and GNAT, with one exception, which relates
> to a change in the front-end interface and is what either just has or
> soon wil be addressed in the g77 release.

That depends.  The next official release of g77, g77-0.5.21, on which we will 
continue to work as soon as the GNU machines at MIT come on the net again, 
will be against gcc-2.7.2.3.  I don't know if that release contains the new 
build_complex routines.  If not, it will remain hard (i.e. require g77 
front-end changes) to build g77 with GNAT, *even if you disregard all 
performance patches from the g77 supplied backend patch*

-- 
Toon Moene (mailto:toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl)
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
Phone: +31 346 214290; Fax: +31 346 214286
g77 Support: mailto:fortran@gnu.ai.mit.edu; NWP: http://www.knmi.nl/hirlam

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Toon Moene]

kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) wrote:

> In article <5u9rdf$r5t$2@news.utrecht.NL.net> Toon Moene 
<toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl> writes:
> >That depends.  The next official release of g77, g77-0.5.21, on which we 
will 
> >continue to work as soon as the GNU machines at MIT come on the net again, 
> >will be against gcc-2.7.2.3.  I don't know if that release contains the 
new 
> >build_complex routines.

> My understanding is that it will.  That's what I meant.  In any event, the
> "fix" is trivial, though a person trying to build it would have to know
> about it.

If that's the case, the best thing to do for someone building g77 + GNAT 
together is to disregard the g77 backend patch alltogether (note: from 
g77-0.5.21 onwards !).  That will give you a Fortran compiler that produces 
suboptimal objects, but they will be as correct as can be, and the Ada 
compiler isn't compromised (which is the whole point of using Ada).

You are right that the "fix" to the g77 frontend is trivial if you know what 
you're doing, but we have already one bug report from a g77 user who tried to 
do it on his own (just in because of the gnu.ai.mit.edu unreachability) and 
it shows it's hard if you don't know what you're doing ;-)

Sorry to be so vague about 2.7.2.3 - I simply haven't got the time yet to 
look at it (nor the disk space) ....

-- 
Toon Moene (mailto:toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl)
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
Phone: +31 346 214290; Fax: +31 346 214286
g77 Support: mailto:fortran@gnu.ai.mit.edu; NWP: http://www.knmi.nl/hirlam

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Craig Burley]

Toon Moene <toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl> writes:

> kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) wrote:
> 
> > In article <5u9rdf$r5t$2@news.utrecht.NL.net> Toon Moene 
> <toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl> writes:
> > >That depends.  The next official release of g77, g77-0.5.21, on which we 
> will 
> > >continue to work as soon as the GNU machines at MIT come on the net again, 
> > >will be against gcc-2.7.2.3.  I don't know if that release contains the 
> new 
> > >build_complex routines.
> 
> > My understanding is that it will.  That's what I meant.  In any event, the
> > "fix" is trivial, though a person trying to build it would have to know
> > about it.
> 
> If that's the case, the best thing to do for someone building g77 + GNAT 
> together is to disregard the g77 backend patch alltogether (note: from 
> g77-0.5.21 onwards !).  That will give you a Fortran compiler that produces 
> suboptimal objects, but they will be as correct as can be, and the Ada 
> compiler isn't compromised (which is the whole point of using Ada).
[...]
> Sorry to be so vague about 2.7.2.3 - I simply haven't got the time yet to 
> look at it (nor the disk space) ....

Actually, right now it looks like g77 0.5.21 will be based on gcc
2.7.2.3, and anyone wanting to combine it with GNAT should ignore
the *GNAT* patches, which g77 includes.  If they want to do the
opposite -- ignore g77's patches and use GNAT's instead -- they'll
have to change a few things in g77.  I thought about changing those
anyway for 0.5.21, but have been convinced otherwise for this
release at least.  0.5.22 might well be another story, whenever
that appears.  The work needed to make g77 build and work okay
with only the GNAT patch set, or no patches to gcc at all, is probably
only slightly more difficult than that to make 0.5.20 and previous
g77 versions work with GNAT's patch set (the incompatible build_complex()
change to the back end).

BTW, 2.7.2.3 as a base seems to be just fine for g77, at least
according to my g77 test suite and the c-torture-1.45 tests.  That
is, no worse than 2.7.2.2 in any way I can see.  Aside from the
screwups between the .tar.gz and .diff.gz distributions that
afflicted 2.7.2.2 and, therefore, 2.7.2.3, that is; g77 will assume
the user somehow got the "correct" 2.7.2.3 ChangeLog file, though
maybe I'll figure out a way to make the g77 patches appear to
apply cleanly regardless, e.g. by deleting the context lines.

(gcc-2.7.2.1-2.7.2.2.diff.gz is "broken" in that it doesn't patch
gcc/ChangeLog; unfortunately both gcc-2.7.2.3.tar.gz and
gcc-2.7.2.2-2.7.2.3.diff.gz are based on the resulting broken
gcc/ChangeLog, which is basically the 2.7.2.1 one.)
-- 

"Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful."
James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson    burley@gnu.ai.mit.edu?

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Craig Burley]

kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:

> In article <5u9rdf$r5t$2@news.utrecht.NL.net> Toon Moene <toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl> writes:
> >That depends.  The next official release of g77, g77-0.5.21, on which we will 
> >continue to work as soon as the GNU machines at MIT come on the net again, 
> >will be against gcc-2.7.2.3.  I don't know if that release contains the new 
> >build_complex routines.
> 
> My understanding is that it will.  That's what I meant.  In any event, the
> "fix" is trivial, though a person trying to build it would have to know
> about it.

You're right, it will, assuming 0.5.21 ever *does* come out.  (Complete
lack of access to the FSF's machines since Thursday noon or so has
pushed the 0.5.21 release off to September 8, or later; I had counted
on being able to alpha-test the final version during the last several
days!)

So, g77-0.5.21 should incorporate the GNAT patch set as of whatever
GNAT version, the one for which you sent me recent patches.  ;-)

(Of course, GNAT users will have to know to *not* apply the patch set
from GNAT to combine it with g77; and g77 makes other patches that
might destabilize GNAT.  In the future, this problem should go away,
but probably not for 0.5.21.)
-- 

"Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful."
James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson    burley@gnu.ai.mit.edu

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Ronald Cole]

kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:
> I think you seriously misunderstand the purpose of the EGCS project,
> which is to provide a framework within which highly experimental (and
> known to be broken) patches to GCC can be developed and perfected.
> Those patches are then fed into the normal GCC development process for
> further testing and then become parts of GCC releases.

I thought the main thrust was to get a g++ out to the public that had
working templates...  Even so, the egcs faq says that the egcs project
will "result in a more useful compiler, a more stable compiler, a
central compiler that works for more people, a compiler that generates
better code."  Better than what?  The FSF gcc?  I will definately use
the better product, which ever that one happens to be at the time.

> Nobody would want to build a public release of anything based on
> software that, by its very design, has serious problems.  That's not
> the purpose of this work.

Have you actually read the egcs home pages, Richard?  Again I quote from
the egcs faq:

   A compiler is a complicated piece of software, there will still be
   strong central maintainers who will reject patches, who will demand
   documentation of implementations, and who will keep the level of
   quality as high as it is today. Code that could use wider testing
   may be intergrated--code that is simply ill-conceived won't be.

So, perhaps it is you who "seriously misunderstands" the purpose of
the egcs project...

> As of the last (or next, I'm not sure of the precise schedule here)
> g77 release, the g77 patch set includes all of the GNAT patches.
> There is some question about whether the g77 patch set contains
> patches that will break GNAT, but none of these patches are actually
> required to build a correctly-functioning g77; they are to add
> optimizations that are deemed important for Fortran users.  Some of
> these optimizations are currently also being experimented with in the
> EGCS project.
> 
> As far as we know, GCC 2.7.2 plus the patches supplied by GNAT, will
> build a functioning g77, g++, and GNAT, with one exception, which relates
> to a change in the front-end interface and is what either just has or
> soon wil be addressed in the g77 release.

It will be nice to have all the public releases sync back up again...

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m2hgc31m93.fsf@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> Ronald Cole <ronald@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> writes:
>I thought the main thrust was to get a g++ out to the public that had
>working templates... 

No, certainly not!

EGCS is not meant to directly produce anything for "the public", but to
debug/improve experimental changes and pass them into the GCC
development stream.

I don't follow g++ development, so I don't understand the reference to
"working templates", but the same folks who set up egcs have total
control over the g++ part of the released GCC, so they don't need to
set up any separate project to get anything "to the public".

>Even so, the egcs faq says that the egcs project
>will "result in a more useful compiler, a more stable compiler, a
>central compiler that works for more people, a compiler that generates
>better code."  Better than what?

Better than what's available now.  The idea is that having such a framework
will allow the time to adequately debug/improve complex changes that can't
fit into the normally rapid pace of the FSF's GCC development.

This is a very worthwhile goal.  For example, if it had been in place two
years ago, the exception handling changes would have been debugging in that
framework, rather than holding up the mainline GCC release and lots of
other useful things.  We'd now be at GCC 2.10 or so instead of just
coming up on 2.8.  That's why I strongly support this project.

The basic idea is that if a proposed change is in good enough shape that it
can be gotten ready in, at most, a month or two, it goes directly into the
GCC development tree and will appear in the next release within a few
months.  If the change need more testing or other work, it gets shunted
over to egcs for that work.  When it's ready, it can go into the
development GCC.  This process will allow these changes, which previously
were hard to handle, to be handled without upsetting the normally rapid
pace of GCC development and will allow for a much better compiler in a
couple of years.

>Have you actually read the egcs home pages, Richard? 

No, but I have heard there are some thing that were hastily written and
that may be what's confusing you.  Also, if you're thinking about the
recent past, you may thing of the GCC development effort as producing a low
rate of releases.  Quite the opposite is true historically and I think
you'll better understand the role of egcs in that context.

>   A compiler is a complicated piece of software, there will still be
>   strong central maintainers who will reject patches, who will demand
>   documentation of implementations, and who will keep the level of
>   quality as high as it is today. Code that could use wider testing
>   may be intergrated--code that is simply ill-conceived won't be.

Right.  That's exacly the point.  egcs will be a place to test code that
doesn't yet meet reliabilty/documentation standards and to bring the code
up to those standards.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Remy Card]

	[Please do not send me any copy when replying in mailing lists
	 or in newsgroups!]

In article <5uoso1$cj5$1@news.nyu.edu>,
Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>EGCS is not meant to directly produce anything for "the public", but to
>debug/improve experimental changes and pass them into the GCC
>development stream.

	Well, I find quite interesting that a project that is not supposed
to "directly produce anything for the public" allows us to get snapshots
(and maybe releases) of their compiler.  I know that I take risks by getting
and using these snapshots, but I certainly appreciate to be able to use
them.  I'd like to see such an open development scheme for gcc.

>I don't follow g++ development, so I don't understand the reference to
>"working templates", but the same folks who set up egcs have total
>control over the g++ part of the released GCC, so they don't need to
>set up any separate project to get anything "to the public".

	Hmmm, when I read the "Tired of waiting..." thread, I got the
impression that people working on the g++ part were quite frustrated
that a new release of gcc/g++ did not happen, because they had much a better
c++ compiler and they had to wait for the FSF gcc maintainers to say "Ok,
it's time to release a new version of gcc/g++", even if they got reports
for bugs that they had fixed one year ago...


>	[snip, snip, ...]
>The basic idea is that if a proposed change is in good enough shape that it
>can be gotten ready in, at most, a month or two, it goes directly into the
>GCC development tree and will appear in the next release within a few
                                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>months.
 ^^^^^^

	Are you kidding?  Can you seriously say "a few months" when the
last release of GCC is 2 years old? :-)

	I don't know anything about compilers, but I like how egcs is
developped and made available to testers on a regular basis.  If the egcs
developpers happen to have a version that is stable enough to be available
as a release, I will certainly use it and not use the FSF gcc anymore.

		Remy

P.S:	Remember Emacs/Xemacs?

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[rosalia]

card@bbj.freenix.fr (Remy Card) writes:
> 	I don't know anything about compilers, but I like how egcs is
> developped and made available to testers on a regular basis.  If the egcs
> developpers happen to have a version that is stable enough to be available
> as a release, I will certainly use it and not use the FSF gcc anymore.

Dude, don't be divisive.  If you need the egcs features, use them!
Nobody will be unhappy about that.

> P.S:	Remember Emacs/Xemacs?

Very different.  All egcs modifications will have ownership assigned
to the FSF.

-- 
             Mark Galassi --- astrophysicist and free software hacker
             Cygnus Solutions and Los Alamos National Laboratory
                                 rosalia@cygnus.com or rosalia@nis.lanl.gov
                                 http://nis-www.lanl.gov/~rosalia/

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Kenner]

In article <5uqh3g$1to$1@bbj.freenix.fr> card@bbj.freenix.fr (Remy Card) writes:
>Well, I find quite interesting that a project that is not supposed
>to "directly produce anything for the public" allows us to get snapshots
>(and maybe releases) of their compiler. 

That's indeed one of the experimental aspects of the project: to see the
effects of making experimental compilers generally available.  Among the
possible results are the bad result of people getting confused between
the stable and experimental versions and the good result of people who get
the versions contributing to fixing the problems in them.

>Hmmm, when I read the "Tired of waiting..." thread, I got the
>impression that people working on the g++ part were quite frustrated
>that a new release of gcc/g++ did not happen, because they had much a better
>c++ compiler and they had to wait for the FSF gcc maintainers to say "Ok,
>it's time to release a new version of gcc/g++", even if they got reports
>for bugs that they had fixed one year ago...

That doesn't make much sense for two reasons:

(1) The startup of the EGCS project is far more likely to slow down
the final testing of GCC 2.8.0 (and hence release) than speed it up
since the people who would otherwise be working on that task are now
splitting their efforts between that and EGCS.

(2) The EGCS project is just starting up and the 2.8 cycle is coming
to an end.  The goals of the EGCS project are to things *after* the
2.8 cycle, not of that cycle itself.

>Are you kidding?  Can you seriously say "a few months" when the
>last release of GCC is 2 years old? :-)

Yes.  The point is that had EGCS been around two years ago, the
work that we held up GCC 2.8 for would have been shunted off to it
and we would have been at 2.10 by now.

>I don't know anything about compilers, but I like how egcs is
>developped and made available to testers on a regular basis.  If the egcs
>developpers happen to have a version that is stable enough to be available
>as a release, I will certainly use it and not use the FSF gcc anymore.

There's some confusion here.  Once a change has been shown stable
enough within the EGCS framework, it gets put into the mainstream
and EGCS goes on to test *other* unstable changes.

egcs. Was: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

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kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:

> In article <5uqh3g$1to$1@bbj.freenix.fr> card@bbj.freenix.fr (Remy Card) writes:
> 
> >Hmmm, when I read the "Tired of waiting..." thread, I got the
> >impression that people working on the g++ part were quite frustrated
> >that a new release of gcc/g++ did not happen, because they had much a better
> >c++ compiler and they had to wait for the FSF gcc maintainers to say "Ok,
> >it's time to release a new version of gcc/g++", even if they got reports
> >for bugs that they had fixed one year ago...
> 
> That doesn't make much sense for two reasons:
> 
> (1) The startup of the EGCS project is far more likely to slow down
> the final testing of GCC 2.8.0 (and hence release) than speed it up
> since the people who would otherwise be working on that task are now
> splitting their efforts between that and EGCS.

A year seems a somewhat long time for "final testing", so I don't
think that final testing of gcc 2.8.0 has been a full-time occupation
for all of the involved parties.

> (2) The EGCS project is just starting up and the 2.8 cycle is coming
> to an end.  The goals of the EGCS project are to things *after* the
> 2.8 cycle, not of that cycle itself.

Mostly yes, because actually nobody can believe that 2.8.0 will be
long coming *now* (but most people believed this already a year ago).
What the EGCS project wants to avoid, probably, is that bug reports
and development focus on outdated work, like it has happened with
2.7-derived compilers, particularly with the g++ frontend.  2.7 is
more than 2 years old, and at least for the last year this has grown
into a major nuisance for C++ users, as the need for a more correct
compiler got more and more pressing for many people.

Personally, I can't actually share your opinion that your arguments
show that trying to have people improve and test the actual streak of
development instead of that from two years ago does not make much
sense.

> >Are you kidding?  Can you seriously say "a few months" when the
> >last release of GCC is 2 years old? :-)
> 
> Yes.  The point is that had EGCS been around two years ago, the
> work that we held up GCC 2.8 for would have been shunted off to it
> and we would have been at 2.10 by now.

So you think that EGCS actually is a good idea, as we would have more
features, and better-tested than we have now.

> 
> >I don't know anything about compilers, but I like how egcs is
> >developped and made available to testers on a regular basis.  If the egcs
> >developpers happen to have a version that is stable enough to be available
> >as a release, I will certainly use it and not use the FSF gcc anymore.
> 
> There's some confusion here.  Once a change has been shown stable
> enough within the EGCS framework, it gets put into the mainstream
> and EGCS goes on to test *other* unstable changes.

Let's see whether this works out.  I doubt it.  Quite a few changes
have been shown stable enough in the Cygnus development framework, yet
they still have not appeared in the "mainstream".


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

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Chris Morgan <mihalis@ix.netcom.com> writes:

> This is a very tricky issue here. Depending on ones prejudices (and
> I have a full complement) one might feel that the Linux "project"
> has only succeeded so astonishingly well because of the advanced
> state of the GNU software it incorporates (but this is highy
> inflammatory to some).

Not at all.  It is a plain fact that the Linux project has succeeded
the way it did *because* of the advanced state of the incorporated GNU
software.  As reverence to the vast contribution the GNU project has
posed, and in recognition of the spirit and the working connotations
involved, Linus Torvalds has put the Linux kernel under the GPL as
well and has acknowledged and stressed the large influence and
importance of the GNU project for the Linux endeavour.

What *has* been inflammatory is that some people from the GNU project
felt it necessary to consider the work of the Linux community invested
in developing a Posix kernel and cleanly integrating the whole lot of
utilities from the GNU project as well as other system components as
just stealing the idea of a GNU system, and have consequently chosen
to unilaterally call the system different names, expressing their
implicit intellectual ownership of the whole Linux movement.

This has raised quite a lot of stink and a lot of overbearing and
partly silly reactions (such as trying to make a "truly" free system
not containing any GPLed components).  Still, some continuing
annoyance remains between people claiming "What you call Linux is just
our GNU system and a bit of kernel" and people wanting to forget the
seminal influence of the whole GNU project altogether if possible (not
that it is) because they get offended by that stance.

Of course, it would be much much more important if both parties kept
their peace and instead focused their ire on things like the upcoming
"I2O" standard which explicitly aims to prohibit development of free
software and particular operating systems for use on standard
hardware.

The recent investment of MS into Apple might be seen as paving the
road for getting this scheme work on a distributed hardware base.  If
the same I/O systems prohibiting use of Linux, the Hurd, FreeBSD and
others are spread to PowerPC bases as well, perhaps they will even
migrate by marketing pressure to Alphas.  Soon no hardware at all will
be able to work with free operating systems, and the whole
Hurd/GNU/Linux animosities will rage on without any significance.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1963 bytes --]


Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

> peltz@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes:
> > However, it doesn't seem to fit with the ideals of the
> > GPL and FSF.
> 
> You may actually be surprised at what Stallman's ideals actually are!
> I thought as you did, and pressed Richard about the altruism he
> describes in his GNU Manifesto.  He told me that "[I was] interpreting
> what [he] wrote in a way that is not [his] interpretation."  I then
> asked him to explain just exactly how he got from "if I like a program
> I must share it with other people who like it" to "each person should
> be free to decide who not to give a copy to".  He never bothered to
> reply.  In light of this statement from the Manifesto "the desire to
> be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world
> in general of all or part of that creativity," I think he sold out on
> his principles.

You are confusing things.  Wishing that people would behave in a
cooperative way is not equivalent to forcing them to do so.  The GPL
is there to prevent the use of software contrary to the intentions of
the author of it.

The act of making a piece of software GPL is a voluntary act of the
software author.  It does not make sense to attach strings to this
which will not help distribution significantly, but scare away authors
needlessly.  A licence like that should *help* the author in making
his software available in a useful way, not burden him or place
responsibilities on him.  The responsibilities rest with
distributors.  As long as they comply with the reasonable
restrictions, they are free making as much money from it as they
want.  Which might not be so very much, as competition could chime in
legally anytime.

-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG]

Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

> If that philosopy is the "Golden Rule" (Kantian) ....

Kant did not advocate the Golden Rule.  (He accepted it, but thought
it was of quite limited usefulness.)  The Golden Rule says "do to
others what you would have them do to you."  But there are several
logical problems in making this foundational for ethics.  

Kant identified a single categorical imperative as foundational for
ethics and gave several formulations of it, which he believed were
logically equivalent.  Three of the most popular formulations are:

*  Act as if the maxim of your action were to be a universal law of
nature.

*  Act as if the maxim of your action were to be a universal moral
law.  

*  Never treat a person as a means, unless in that action you treat
them simultaneously as an end.

Kant explicitly stated that he believed this principle to be superior
to and different from the Golden Rule.

Thomas

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Scott Michel]

In gnu.misc.discuss Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG <thomas@gnu.ai.mit.edu> alleges:
: Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

: Kant identified a single categorical imperative as foundational for
: ethics and gave several formulations of it, which he believed were
: logically equivalent.  Three of the most popular formulations are:

: *  Act as if the maxim of your action were to be a universal law of
: nature.

: *  Act as if the maxim of your action were to be a universal moral
: law.  

: *  Never treat a person as a means, unless in that action you treat
: them simultaneously as an end.

: Kant explicitly stated that he believed this principle to be superior
: to and different from the Golden Rule.

Quick! We need a Randian to jump in and set things straight "Why Kant
Is A Really Bad Thing"!

The problem with the above rules is that they are subjective. I doubt
if anyone can give me a concrete def'n what universal laws of nature
and morality are (appealling to my rational side, not my emotional
"But it's just good and the other is evil, dammit!")

The "Golden Rule" is well defined, even in the abstract. It causes one
to reflect as to what the consequences of action are.

The same can't be said of Kant, who couldn't anyway, even in smug
superiority.

Thomas and I have sparred on this in the past. And I doubt that there
will ever be any resolution to the Plato/Hegel/Kant vs.
Aristotle/Aquinas/Rand dichotomy, so long as the P/H/K types claim
that the A/A/R are unfeeling, overly rational, and just plain evil,
dammit!


-scottm
-- 
Scott Michel                           Graduate School:
UCLA Computer Science		          It's Not Just A Job.
PhD Student                               It's An Indenture.

"AND STOP CALLING ME Scooter!" :-)

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG]

Scott Michel <scottm@cs.ucla.edu> writes:

> Quick! We need a Randian to jump in and set things straight "Why Kant
> Is A Really Bad Thing"!

Ayn Rand was an idiot.  Kant was wrong, but not an idiot.  Plato,
Hegel, and Aristotly were also wrong, and also brilliant.  Ayn Rand
was wrong, but not brilliant, not original, and certainly an idiot.

> The problem with the above rules is that they are subjective. I doubt
> if anyone can give me a concrete def'n what universal laws of nature
> and morality are (appealling to my rational side, not my emotional
> "But it's just good and the other is evil, dammit!")

A universal law of nature is one that does, in fact, always happen.
To wish "truth telling" to be a law of nature is to wish for the
impossibility of lying.  Roughly, then, the "universal law of nature"
test of ethical principle says "act in manner X if you can
consistently wish that all rational beings always acted in manner X." 
This seems perfectly objective to me, even if difficult in practice to
apply.

The "difficulty in practice" is in fact very severe, let me hasten to
point out.  The problem is that morality applies in the first instance
to actions, not maxims, and there is no single way to figure out for
an action what the maxim was.  Kant's principle only talks about
maxims, alas, and there's no way to make it talk about actions. 

> The "Golden Rule" is well defined, even in the abstract. It causes one
> to reflect as to what the consequences of action are.

The Golden Rule is hopeless as an ethical test, if you use it
in even a slightly non-charitable fashion.  It does not offer any
escape from subjectivity at all; leaving me to figure out "what I want
others to do for me" and then do that for others.  Rand, who pretends
to say "nothing" to the former question, can thus bogusly claim to be
honoring ethical principle in doing nothing for others.  This is not
the triumph of the Golden Rule, it's the desmonstration that it does
not really work in a critical environment.

> The same can't be said of Kant, who couldn't anyway, even in smug
> superiority.

If you read the _Metaphysics_of_Morals_ you will see that, in fact,
Kant talked about results of actions all the time.  Constantly.  His
every discussion focuses on the results of actions.  I can only
suspect that you have never read the _Metaphysics_of_Morals_.  (This
is hardly unique; most people who have read widely in philosophy have
never read it.  The _Metaphysics_of_Morals_ is usually skipped in
favor of the _Grounding_of_the_Metaphysics_of_Morals_ and the
_Critique_of_Pracitical_Reason_.)  _MM_ is all about the analysis of
particular proposed maxims; the analysis applies the categorical
imperative most frequently in its "ends/means" formulation ("Treat
other people as means only if in that action you simultaneously treat
them as an end") and in so doing, Kant discusses outcomes and
consequences exceedingly frequently.

> Thomas and I have sparred on this in the past. And I doubt that there
> will ever be any resolution to the Plato/Hegel/Kant vs.
> Aristotle/Aquinas/Rand dichotomy, so long as the P/H/K types claim
> that the A/A/R are unfeeling, overly rational, and just plain evil,
> dammit!

Plato and Hegel were much less rational that Kant or Aristotle.  They
themselves gloried in this, with much about intuition and mystic
rapture and what not as so very important.  Aristotle pooh poohed all
that (somewhat dismissively, alas--it would be nice to see a more
reasoned critique than he gives us) and insisted on a much more
down-to-earth nuts and bones philosophy.

Kant is really an odd bug in this mix.  He's no friend of Hegel, and
fits much better in an Aristotelian mix.  Applying the corrective of
the critique, Kant notices that reason isn't so good as Aristotle (or
Descartes) thought.  But Kant doesn't propose to replace reason with
feeling or vague intuitions (a la Hegel), but rather to just remain
silent.  He has the greatest respect for reason, in fact--and where
reason cannot tread, Kant basically thinks humans cannot go--so there
is no rival to reason for its preeminence (again, contra Hegel).

The real clue here is that you are to busy thinking that Ayn Rand is
not an idiot to actually read Kant.  This I know, for you lump Kant in
with thinking that ethics has anything to do with feeling!  The one
thing that Kant is most honored for in ethics is not the categorical
imperative, and certainly not the casuistic analysis of MM, but rather
the striking claim that ethics comes entirely (100%, with absolutely
nothing left over) from reason--with absolutely no admixture of
passion, inclination, or feeling of any kind.  

Aristotle and Aquinas actually are my favorites to read, with Kant as
a close third.  Ayn Rand, however, (which, sad to say, I have read) is
just an idiot.

Thomas

Re: Rand Kant Hegel with Aristotle ?

[Wes Groleau]

> > The "Golden Rule" is well defined, even in the abstract. It causes 
> > one to reflect as to what the consequences of action are.
> 
> The Golden Rule is hopeless as an ethical test, .... it does
> not really work in a critical environment.

This has nothing to do with Ada, and little to do with GNU, but...

The "Golden Rule" comes with its own interpretation.  The original
formulation of "So in everything, do to others what you would have 
them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."
was by Jesus Christ who also said that "all the law and the prophets"
depend on two commandments, of which the second is "Love your neighbor
as yourself."  He went on to clarify "neighbor" and He and His 
followers have gone into great detail on the nature of love (which, 
by the way, differs considerably from the popular understanding in 
that it has very little to do with "feeling").

(Just to head it off before it happens: the common response that 
many of His alleged followers do not live that way is TOTALLY 
IRRELEVANT to whether or not the advice is good.)

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Rand Kant Hegel with Aristotle ?

[Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG]

Wes Groleau <no.such.user@does.not.exist.com> writes:

> The "Golden Rule" comes with its own interpretation.  The original
> formulation of "So in everything, do to others what you would have 
> them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."
> was by Jesus Christ who also said that "all the law and the prophets"
> depend on two commandments, of which the second is "Love your neighbor
> as yourself."  He went on to clarify "neighbor" and He and His 
> followers have gone into great detail on the nature of love (which, 
> by the way, differs considerably from the popular understanding in 
> that it has very little to do with "feeling").

The Golden Rule is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you".  This rule is NOT identified by Jesus as the "summary of the
law" as you erroneously seem to say.  Jesus never said that the Golden
Rule was some universal ethical principle.  (But other people have
said that, and Kant [and I] disagree with them.)

The "summary of the law" is essentially "love God and love your
neighbor as yourself".  

"Love your neighbor as yourself" is not the same thing as "do unto
others as you would have them do to you".

Thomas

Re: Rand Kant Hegel with Aristotle ?

[Michael F Brenner]

> ... The original
> formulation of "So in everything, do to others what you would have
> them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."
> was by Jesus Christ who also said that "all the law and the prophets"
> depend on two commandments, of which the second is "Love your neighbor
> as yourself."...

An earlier reference is the following:
   (Leviticus 19:18) Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge
   against people but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Re: Rand Kant Hegel with Aristotle ?

[Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG]

mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner) writes:

> > ... The original
> > formulation of "So in everything, do to others what you would have
> > them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."
> > was by Jesus Christ who also said that "all the law and the prophets"
> > depend on two commandments, of which the second is "Love your neighbor
> > as yourself."...

> An earlier reference is the following:
>    (Leviticus 19:18) Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge
>    against people but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself

What's new with Jesus is not this command, 'tis true.  (And I didn't
say otherwise.)

What was new was the idea that this (along with "love God") served as
a summary of the law.  Lev. 19:18 is one command mixed in with
jillions of others and given no special status.

What's also new with Jesus is the extension of "neighbor" to be all
human beings.

Thomas

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Weller]

In article <sz0afk6ejlk.fsf@sugar-bombs.gnu.ai.mit.edu>,
>a close third.  Ayn Rand, however, (which, sad to say, I have read) is
>just an idiot.
>


I Kant believe this discussion has gotten soooo off-topic!   :-)


-- 
Booch Components Homepage: www.rivatech.com ||Ada Homepage: www.adahome.com

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

David Weller says

<<I Kant believe this discussion has gotten soooo off-topic!   :-)>>

Well I think it is to be expected in a thread that is cross-posted
to gnu.misc.discuss. I don't know who first adjoined this cross post,
but they are the responsible party :-)

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG]

dweller@news.imagin.net (David Weller) writes:

> In article <sz0afk6ejlk.fsf@sugar-bombs.gnu.ai.mit.edu>,
> >a close third.  Ayn Rand, however, (which, sad to say, I have read) is
> >just an idiot.
> 
> I Kant believe this discussion has gotten soooo off-topic!   :-)

One of the joys of modern philosophy is the plethora of puns:

Putting Descartes before de horse.  Berkeleyng up the wrong tree.
Hume-an nature.  Locke and key.  and on.  and on.

But philosophy is always on topic!  What do you think that little `Ph'
means in all those PhD degrees?

Thomas

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Mark Atwood]

thomas@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG) writes:
> 
> But philosophy is always on topic!  What do you think that little `Ph'
> means in all those PhD degrees?
> 

Piled higher ...

-- 
Mark Atwood       | Thank you gentlemen, you are everything we have come to
zot@ampersand.com | expect from years of government training. -- MIB Zed

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Matthew S. Whiting]

Mark Atwood wrote:
> 
> thomas@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG) writes:
> >
> > But philosophy is always on topic!  What do you think that little `Ph'
> > means in all those PhD degrees?
> >
> 
> Piled higher ...
> 
... and Deeper.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Stefan Monnier]

thomas@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG) writes:
> But philosophy is always on topic!  What do you think that little `Ph'
> means in all those PhD degrees?

I thought it was "phahrenheit" !


        Stephan

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

Wes said

<<David Weller's "Ada Community License" and GNAT's "special exception"
are very welcome relief from the above restriction.
>>


What exactly is the concern here. For things like the Booch components
the modified GPL would give you as much freedom as the ACL.

The only thing the ACL allows that the GPL definitely does not (and
quite deliberately so) is for some company to make a proprietary version
of the components with some improvements, and this proprietary version
could have arbitrary restrictions.,

Wes, I can't tell if there is some reason concern here, or whether this
is typical misinformed GPL FUD :-)

Is there some reason you perceive that using, e.g. runtime units from
GNAT or GLADE with the modified GPL is somehow problematic for you.

Of course, if what you are interested in is actually *being* the company
that takes Dave Weller's work and makes a proprietary copy of it, then
I would understand why you preferred the ACL, but if all you are thinking
of doing is using the components, either in original or modified form,
in your software, then I don't see the issue.

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Wes Groleau]

> What exactly is the concern here. For things like the Booch components
> the modified GPL would give you as much freedom as the ACL.

My concern is not the restrictions of the UNmodified GPL, it is the
people who recommend GPL'd code, and then tell me I don't know what
I'm talking about when I say I can't use it.

> or whether this is typical misinformed GPL FUD :-)

I have no Fear on the issue.  I did have some uncertainty and doubt
until I re-read the GPL and found that it does indeed say exactly 
what I thought it said.  :-)

> Is there some reason you perceive that using, e.g. runtime units from
> GNAT or GLADE with the modified GPL is somehow problematic for you.

No, like I said, I think the ACL and the GNAT "modified GPL" are 
excellent.  And I don't begrudge the FSF their right to restrict 
their stuff as they see fit.  My concern again is first, false
information about the GPL, and second the suspicion that it is so
restrictive as to be counter-productive.
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be
                    wwgrol AT pseserv3.fw.hac.com

Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked!  All disk space
on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or 
the United States government.  Using email to store YOUR advertising 
on them is trespassing!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Robert Dewar]

OOPS, it was Wes who talked about anonymous email of things people said
to him, not Dave Weller (sorry for misattribution, Wes's messages are
sometimes easy to misattribute because of his deliberately uninformative
header :-)

Re: gnat-3.10

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m2oh8ydzt8.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net> Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
>Under Section 3 of the GPL, it seems clear that once you distribute an
>object code work based on a GPL'd program, you must release the source
>code concurrently.

This is a common misconception.  See the FSF web pages for a more
detailed discussion of this issue.

In general, the GPL does not (and cannot) impose any requirement to
distribute anything at all, nor to make anything available in any way.

It imposes precisely two requirements: (1) to not put any restrictions
on redistribution and (2) to make sources available when something is
distributed in binary form.  The latter includes a requirement that
the fee for such distribution be limited to cost.  This is the only
requirement on limiting prices in the GPL and is because it would
otherwise be possible to effectively not provide the sources by
setting a very high price on them.

Here is Section 3 that you reference.  Note that there are options (a)
and (b) that would apply to your scenario.  You act as though (a) was
the only option.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

  3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

    a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
    source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
    1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

    b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
    years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
    cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
    machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
    distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
    customarily used for software interchange; or,

    c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
    to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
    allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
    received the program in object code or executable form with such
    an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.  For an executable work, complete source
code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the executable.  However, as a
special exception, the source code distributed need not include
anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
itself accompanies the executable.

If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

Re: gnat-3.10

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <m2oh8ydzt8.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>, Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>> We have a number of large customers on HPUX. They were using 3.09 when it
>> was the current release, most of them have by now switched to 3.10 which is
>> the current product release. As usual, this will be released publicly in
>> the future.
> 
> GNAT is based on GCC, right?  What section of the GPL are you relying
> on to justify making binary releases of modified GPL software to your
> paying clients and refusing to make the source code available to the
> public at the same time?  Under Section 3 of the GPL, it seems clear
> that once you distribute an object code work based on a GPL'd program,
> you must release the source code concurrently.

I thought the rule was merely that one had to distribute source to those
to whom one distributed the binary, without restriction on their right
to redistribute.

Certainly requiring an innovator to engage in distribution to other
individuals would be an onerous burden.  Since ACT chooses to use
the Internet for their distributions anyway they can make public
"distributions" cheaply, but the fact that they do so should not
burden them any more than any other innovator.

The general way of getting the sources would then be to find one of
those large customers who are paying for support.  I would advise a
gentler approach than has been used in this thread.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen) writes:
> I thought the rule was merely that one had to distribute source to those
> to whom one distributed the binary, without restriction on their right
> to redistribute.

After re-reading the GNU Manifesto, it's clear that Stallman only
wants to make sure that one can get the source code to any GPL'd
binary one finds himself in possession of.  Even though Stallman pays
lip service to Kantian ethics ("Since I do not like the consequences
that result if everyone hoards information, I am required to consider
it wrong for one to do so.  Specifically, the desire to be rewarded
for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general
of all or part of that creativity." [GNU Manifesto]), it would appear
that the GPL is powerless to prevent the following scenario:

		  MAKE MONEY FAST HOARDING GPL'D SOFTWARE
			  Version 1, June 1997

1.  Make very useful enhancements to software that Stallman and others
    have worked hard on to make "free".
2.  GPL those useful enhancements.
3.  Find companies that are willing to pay big bucks for said
    enhancements.
4.  Said companies, after paying through the nose for GPL'd software,
    are unwilling to re-distribute because the GPL apparently only
    obligates one to distribute source if one distributes binaries.
    (Why would someone want to incur this obligation for something
    they had to pay a lot of money to acquire in the first place?)

Thus, as an implementation of the "Golden Rule", the GPL loses.

> The general way of getting the sources would then be to find one of
> those large customers who are paying for support.  I would advise a
> gentler approach than has been used in this thread.

Doubtful ACT will ever give out it's client list.  I know I wouldn't
give out mine.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald said

<<Doubtful ACT will ever give out it's client list.  I know I wouldn't
give out mine.
>>

Well certainly we won't give anyone a complete client list, since many of
our clients would not appreicate this kind of publicity. However, in cases
where we have permission from clients, we are generally happy to publicize
the fact that they are clients, and have often done so in the past.

We are otherwise highly protective of our clients interests, and respect
their wishes for not having their names revealed, as I am sure people
perfectly well understand.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald says

<<                  MAKE MONEY FAST HOARDING GPL'D SOFTWARE
                          Version 1, June 1997

1.  Make very useful enhancements to software that Stallman and others
    have worked hard on to make "free".
2.  GPL those useful enhancements.
3.  Find companies that are willing to pay big bucks for said
    enhancements.
4.  Said companies, after paying through the nose for GPL'd software,
    are unwilling to re-distribute because the GPL apparently only
    obligates one to distribute source if one distributes binaries.
    (Why would someone want to incur this obligation for something
    they had to pay a lot of money to acquire in the first place?)
>>


Well I guess Ronald finally understands the GPL :-)

In practice this scenario is of limited likelihood, and that is why it
has not happened in practice. If one charged "big bucks" for the enhancements
you had made, and if companies were willing to pay the big bucks, then an
obvious thing happens:

   1. If you charge say $1 million for your wonderfgul enhancements

   2. And lots of companies are willing to pay $1 million

   3. Then someone will buy it for $1 million

   4. And undercut your business by selling it for the bargain price of 
	say $200,000

But as I have said all along, there is nothing that requires you to 
distribute something you do under the GPL. One of the freedoms it confers
is the freedom to distribute your work to whomever you please. The
ultimate hoarding that can occur is if someone makes wonderful software
and keeps it to themselves completely, but no one in the GNU world thinks
for a monment that this should be prevented.

As I have frequently noted, there is nothing that requires ACT to continue
to make binary versions of GNAT available. It is something we choose to do as
a service to the Ada community.

Ron will just have to wait like everyone else for the public release of
3.10 which will happen in due time when we judge it to be appropriate. At
that time Ron can pick up a copy (whose availability is made possible by 
ACT customers who do pay for support :-) and start griping about 3.10 :-)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

P.S. I quite realize that there are people with quite extreme views on
how software should be distributed and shared, but you should not assume
that everyone else shares these views. Now if Ron would put his energy
into providing free software, rather than trying to get hold of 3.10
before we consider it ready for public release, that would be more helpful.
But I guess the communistic view always appeals more to those who need what
they do not have, as opposed to those who have what they do not need :-)

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Well I guess Ronald finally understands the GPL :-)

Yes, Stallman left a hole in the GPL big enough for you to drive
your truck through and set up a toll gate.

> In practice this scenario is of limited likelihood, and that is why it
> has not happened in practice. If one charged "big bucks" for the enhancements
> you had made, and if companies were willing to pay the big bucks, then an
> obvious thing happens:
> 
>    1. If you charge say $1 million for your wonderfgul enhancements
> 
>    2. And lots of companies are willing to pay $1 million
> 
>    3. Then someone will buy it for $1 million
> 
>    4. And undercut your business by selling it for the bargain price of 
> 	say $200,000

This assumes that the company that paid big bugs for a solution is
willing to "burden" themselves with the GPL's redistribution
requirements in order to recoup their costs.  There are many other
less-painful ways to recoup costs that do not benefit free software,
and so I think it's likelihood isn't as limited as you appear to
think it is.

> But as I have said all along, there is nothing that requires you to 
> distribute something you do under the GPL. One of the freedoms it confers
> is the freedom to distribute your work to whomever you please. The
> ultimate hoarding that can occur is if someone makes wonderful software
> and keeps it to themselves completely, but no one in the GNU world thinks
> for a monment that this should be prevented.

It's your choice to distribute your work under the GPL.  Once one
chooses to distribute their work to person-A under the GPL, one should
not be allowed to say "no" if person-B asks for a copy.  That is why
Richard wrote the following: "Thus, there's no requirement to make a
public announcement of a source release to accompany the binary
release, but you may have to provide the sources to any number of
people other than those who got the binary directly from you, if they
request it."  This is just a reiteration of the Kantian philosophy
that is supposed to be embodied in the GPL.

All I would like is a provision in the GPL that prevents people from
doing what you did.  Perhaps I can convince Richard of the importance
of including his statement in the GPL before gcc-2.8 is released.

> Now if Ron would put his energy into providing free software, rather
> than trying to get hold of 3.10 before we consider it ready for
> public release, that would be more helpful.

You yourself said that 3.10 is your "current production release".  Do
your customers know that you consider that it's not even ready for
public release?  And why would I want to provide free software to the
world under a licensing agreement that makes it less-than-freely-
available to everyone?

> But I guess the communistic view always appeals more to those who
> need what they do not have, as opposed to those who have what they
> do not need :-)

It sure does.  That's why you are using the gcc backend instead of
writing one yourself.  The GPL loophole appeals to your sense of
greed.  If you really were to "walk the walk", you wouldn't say no to
my request for a copy because you would be making your money just
charging for support.  I guess you're afraid of free market
competition.

Besides, Communism forbids the ownership of property, so I think you
meant to say "socialistic view".  Regardless, use of the GPL on one's
work is voluntary and is thus libertarian.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald says

<<It sure does.  That's why you are using the gcc backend instead of
writing one yourself.  The GPL loophole appeals to your sense of
greed.  If you really were to "walk the walk", you wouldn't say no to
my request for a copy because you would be making your money just
charging for support.  I guess you're afraid of free market
competition.
>>


The reason we say no to your request for a copy of the latest version is
that we do not want you to waste time as you did on 3.09. Apparently, you
expected free support on those problems, and got a bit upset when we
declined. Since no free support will be available on 3.10 either, we
will not give you a copy until we feel it is in reasonable shape for
a public release.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> The reason we say no to your request for a copy of the latest version is
> that we do not want you to waste time as you did on 3.09.

Well, this is certainly the first time you have said this!  Your public
release of 3.09 certainly was a waste of time on the HPUX platform...

> Apparently, you expected free support on those problems, and got a
> bit upset when we declined.

This is a lie.  All I did was report the optimizer bug to
report@gnat.com back in early February.  Richard Kenner kindly sent a
patch, but I didn't test it out because I thought (erroneously, with
the benefit of 20/20 hindsight) that you would probably make a "patch"
release (like are made for gcc or emacs when serious platform problems
are encountered) right away.

At no time did I demand that you fix it for me.

Last month, I had heard that some of your customers were enjoying 3.10
on HPUX and so I asked if 3.10 for HPUX could at least compile itself
according to your instructions.  When you rather-rudely indicated that
1) yes, they were, and 2) yes, it could, I asked you for the source.

> Since no free support will be available on 3.10 either, we will not
> give you a copy until we feel it is in reasonable shape for a public
> release.

Since you distributed 3.09 publicly in such bad shape for the HPUX
platform, I have reason to doubt that the public 3.10 will be any
different.  Additionally, I have reason to believe that your
definition of "reasonable" adheres to a standard that is quite a bit
lower than mine.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Philip Brashear]

Mr. Cole,

Please give it up.  This is getting VERY boring to the rest of the CLA
community.  Have you not noticed that you have little or no support in
this crusade?  There is a reason for this.

At the very least, please consider nettiquite, and turn down the volume.

Phil Brashear
An unsupported use of GNAT

Re: gnat-3.10

[James Rogers]

Ronald Cole wrote:
> 
> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> > The reason we say no to your request for a copy of the latest version is
> > that we do not want you to waste time as you did on 3.09.
> 
> Well, this is certainly the first time you have said this!  Your public
> release of 3.09 certainly was a waste of time on the HPUX platform...
> 
> > Apparently, you expected free support on those problems, and got a
> > bit upset when we declined.
 
> > Since no free support will be available on 3.10 either, we will not
> > give you a copy until we feel it is in reasonable shape for a public
> > release.

The ACT WEB page certainly has some misleading information concerning
support.  On the URL www.gnat.com/ftp/html is the following:

Downloading GNAT

Current supported platforms and versions are as follows:

      GNAT 3.09 Alpha Digital Unix 4.0
      GNAT 3.09 HP HPUX 10.x
      GNAT 3.09 x86 Linux ELF
      GNAT 3.09 SGI IRIX 5.3/6.2
      GNAT 3.09 SNI SINIX 5.45
      GNAT 3.09 Sparc Solaris 2.3/2.4/2.5.1
      GNAT 3.09 Sparc SunOS 4.1.3
      GNAT 3.09 Windows NT/Windows 95
      GNAT 3.09 IBM OS/2 Warp
      GNAT 3.09 Powermac Machten
      GNAT 3.07 DOS 

Gnat is available from these FTP sites and mirrors. 

      ----------------------------------------

I understand that ACT means that support is for a fee.  Unfortunately,
this is not stated or implied on this WEB page.  Since the versions
listed are available for free download, it is easy and not 
unreasonable to assume that *some* level of support is available
to those who do not pay a fee.

Perhaps the WEB page should read:

Currently available versions are as follows:
(Support for these versions is available for a fee)


-- 
Jim Rogers
*************************************************************
Team Ada

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

James Rogers said

<<The ACT WEB page certainly has some misleading information concerning
support.  On the URL www.gnat.com/ftp/html is the following:
>>


Right, I see how this could be misleading, we will eliminate this page
right away. Thanks.

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Just in case Ronald's latest post causes any further confusion, just let
me repeat the point that anytime you see a binary GNAT release from ACT,
it has *always* bootstrapped itself, since that is the way we build releases.
RC may or may not succeed in repeating this process for HPUX 3.10, but certainly we have 
succeeded in doing the bootstrap at ACT.

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Just in case Ronald's latest post causes any further confusion, just let
> me repeat the point that anytime you see a binary GNAT release from ACT,
> it has *always* bootstrapped itself, since that is the way we build releases.
> RC may or may not succeed in repeating this process for HPUX 3.10, but certainly we have 
> succeeded in doing the bootstrap at ACT.

Yes, but should this latest rehash cause any *further* confusion, it
has been demonstrated that the binary GNAT release for the HP PA-RISC
is unable to compile two files in the GNAT source release with *any*
level of optimization.

This, Robert claims, was a release that, as a matter of policy, ACT
held up until it was well-tested by customers "to ensure a quality
product".

All this demonstrates a couple of things:

1) customer driven testing is no substitute for quality/robustness
   testing.
2) the person who bootstrapped the port didn't deem the compiler
   crashes during the bootstrap serious enough to hold up releasing
   GNAT-3.09 publicly.
3) Robert is unafraid to bundle last minute, unverified, gcc patches into
   his public releases and undo any stated benefits for unsupported
   gnat users.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m22056txii.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net> Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
>Yes, but should this latest rehash cause any *further* confusion, it
>has been demonstrated that the binary GNAT release for the HP PA-RISC
>is unable to compile two files in the GNAT source release with *any*
>level of optimization.

That's simply not possible since the binary release was constructed by
compiling all the sources files.  There therefore must have been *some*
set of options that compiled them. 

Re: gnat-3.10

[Fergus Henderson]

Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

 >dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
 >> If one charged "big bucks" for the enhancements
 >> you had made, and if companies were willing to pay the big bucks, then an
 >> obvious thing happens:
 >> 
 >>    1. If you charge say $1 million for your wonderfgul enhancements
 >> 
 >>    2. And lots of companies are willing to pay $1 million
 >> 
 >>    3. Then someone will buy it for $1 million
 >> 
 >>    4. And undercut your business by selling it for the bargain price of 
 >> 	say $200,000
 >
 >This assumes that the company that paid big bugs for a solution is
 >willing to "burden" themselves with the GPL's redistribution
 >requirements in order to recoup their costs.

No it doesn't.  They can still undercut your business by selling
your GPL'd software, with source, for $200,000.  They don't need to
distribute their own software at all, and they won't be "burdened".

--
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3         |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald says

<<You yourself said that 3.10 is your "current production release".  Do
your customers know that you consider that it's not even ready for
public release?  And why would I want to provide free software to the
world under a licensing agreement that makes it less-than-freely-
available to everyone?
>>

Right, when a production release is first made, it obviously has not been
as widely used as a production release that has been made some time ago
and widely used.

When we first make a prerelease, those customers that want to go to the
new version, to get the benefit of bug releases and new features can.
Some choose to, some choose not to. Those who choose to move to the new
release know that we will provide immediate help to them if there are 
any problems. This does not guarantee freedom from problems, but it
helps to reduce the risk.

For example, if there is a slight installation glitch that causes trouble
on some particular hardware configuration, we can easily help anyone
who runs into it, and let people know how to get around it. 

But a public release is a much different thing. Thousands will use it
who have no access to support from us or from any one else. It is therefore
much more important that public releases be glitch free, particularly
when it comes to installation problems.

That is why we delay making public releases until we think that all
the glitches have been ironed out. Some of our customers wait until
well after the public release to switch versions, which seems quite
reasonable, others want to move immediately to the new release.

Ronald is all upset over "what we have done to him", but all we have done
to him is to tell him to wait until we think that the version is ready for
public distribution. As we all know, Ronald had trouble with the 3.09
public release, perhaps that says we should have waited LONGER rathern
than SHORTER to distribute 3.09, though one cannot be sure that all
problems will be solved at any time.

Incidentally Richard Stallman is definitely supportive of the notion of
not releasing free software before it is in an appropriate state. The
Linux folks have often argued that the Linux distributes should contain
the latest GCC snapshots, since obviously they fix bugs, but such an
attitude is not a good idea in the long run.

Sure, everyone would like to be able to get the latest and greatest GNAT
as early as possible, but we do not think it will help the community to
have very frequent releases which have not been thoroughly user tested.

We are willing to let customers have versions earlier, precisely because
we know we are there to help if there are any problems. 

Actually Ronald's experience in failing to build from sources is a really
good illustration of the problem. If Ronald had been a customer, then of
course we would be spending time with him to get around the problem (whether
the problem is our problem or the customer's problem is not the issue in
this situation, getting around the problem *is* the only issue). On the
other hand, Ronald's frustration with 3.09 is a good example of what we
want to avoid happening by making sure that public releases are in good
shape before they occur.

This is simply a matter of quality control, which seems in our judgment
to be as important for public releases of GNAT as it is for any other
customer releases that we make.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> As we all know, Ronald had trouble with the 3.09
> public release, perhaps that says we should have waited LONGER rathern
> than SHORTER to distribute 3.09, though one cannot be sure that all
> problems will be solved at any time.

You put Richard Kenner's lastest patches in the publicly released
gcc-272.dif the day before you released it.  Clearly, they weren't
well tested.  So, if you aren't willing to build and test the public
binary releases before you release the source, I would prefer that you
didn't allow last-minute changes to your "well tested" prereleases as
a matter of policy.  Particularly, if you're not going to make
"platform" fix releases (like gcc-2.7.2.1.tar.gz and
emacs-19.34b.tar.gz were).  I'll even go so far as to say that you
could have just put a newer gcc-272.dif file on cs.nyu.edu with a note
explaining the problem!

Not quite a year ago, I was able to build a combined gcc-2.7.2,
gnat-3.07, and g77-0.5.18 that bootstrapped perfectly with -O on HPUX.
That is a quite a tribute to Richard Kenner and his work on gcc!  I
would hope to be able to do the same with gcc-2.7.2.2, gnat-3.10, and
g77-0.5.20.

I am willing to wait for a well-tested public 3.10, just like I'm
willing to wait for gcc-2.8.  I am very confident that when gcc-2.8.0
is finally released that it will bootstrap with -O2 on the HPUX
platform!

> Incidentally Richard Stallman is definitely supportive of the notion of
> not releasing free software before it is in an appropriate state. The
> Linux folks have often argued that the Linux distributes should contain
> the latest GCC snapshots, since obviously they fix bugs, but such an
> attitude is not a good idea in the long run.

Linux is very stable because public "snapshots" are made available
quite frequently for a lot of people to build and report problems they
encounter.  Linux development is truly a community project.  I
generally don't mess with the development releases until Linus declares
that he is freezing features and readying the next stable version, at
which point I lend a hand in making it very stable by building it on
as many different platforms/configurations as I am able to.

> other hand, Ronald's frustration with 3.09 is a good example of what we
> want to avoid happening by making sure that public releases are in good
> shape before they occur.

I'd have to agree that it was pretty foolish to make a public release
of 3.09 that depended on untested/unproven last-minute patches to gcc.
I'll reserve judgement on 3.10 until you release it publicly.

> This is simply a matter of quality control, which seems in our judgment
> to be as important for public releases of GNAT as it is for any other
> customer releases that we make.

Then you might want to seriously consider building and testing the
public binary releases before you release the source publicly.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Daniel R Risacher]

While I understand and sympathize completely with ACT's position, (as
stated by Robert) I suggest that the more commonly used model for GNU
software is to have separate "stable" and "bleeding edge" releases.

Examples of this are Linux and the GIMP.  You cannot set up Linux
2.1.43 without seeing many notices warning that it is a developmental,
kernel-hacker's version.  But you can download it just the same.  I
wouldn't expect anyone to provide support for 2.1.43 without being
paid for it.  

The GIMP is similar.  0.54 is billed as a "mostly-stable" version, but
developers (and patient users) have been playing with 0.99.x for a
while.  Support for 0.99 consists only of a mailing list of other
users/developers.

Guile has automatic, daily snapshots of the latest code available.

I suggest this sort of policy might be a reasonable model for gnat
distribution.  I don't know; I don't use gnat, or Ada, for that
matter.

$2E-2, 
 Dan Risacher


>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> writes:

    Robert> That is why we delay making public releases until we think
    Robert> that all the glitches have been ironed out. Some of our
    Robert> customers wait until well after the public release to
    Robert> switch versions, which seems quite reasonable, others want
    Robert> to move immediately to the new release.

    Robert> Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies

Re: gnat-3.10

[David Kastrup]

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Daniel R Risacher <risacher@worldnet.att.net> writes:

> While I understand and sympathize completely with ACT's position,
> (as stated by Robert) I suggest that the more commonly used model
> for GNU software is to have separate "stable" and "bleeding edge"
> releases.

No, this is rather uncommon, except for few examples.  In fact, *all*
of the GNU software distributed by the FSF tends to be distributed
mostly in what is considered a stable version (although typically some
earlier versions are kept for safety).  There is no explicit
distinction into stable and development versions for public releases.

>  Examples of this are Linux and the GIMP.  You cannot set up Linux
> 2.1.43 without seeing many notices warning that it is a
> developmental, kernel-hacker's version.  But you can download it
> just the same.  I wouldn't expect anyone to provide support for
> 2.1.43 without being paid for it.

Depends on what you call "support".  Actually, most of the support and
development in the various Linux usenet groups focuses around the
development versions, as there the most remains to be done.  If you
mean installation support by major Linux distributors, they will
obviously support what they provide, and that will indeed typically be
a "stable" version.

>  The GIMP is similar.  0.54 is billed as a "mostly-stable" version,
> but developers (and patient users) have been playing with 0.99.x for
> a while.  Support for 0.99 consists only of a mailing list of other
> users/developers.

And what superior support is offered for 0.54?

>  Guile has automatic, daily snapshots of the latest code available.
>  I suggest this sort of policy might be a reasonable model for gnat
> distribution.  I don't know; I don't use gnat, or Ada, for that
> matter.

It is usually quite a hassle to provide compilable, useful source
every day.  At the very least, you have to use something like CVS for
version control.  For some smaller projects this trouble might not at
all be worth the cost.

There are added disadvantages if you give development versions to the
public:  you have to sort out bug information and user foolishnesses
from sometimes inscrutible bug reports, and this can take more time
than you want to invest in it.  If you do alpha testing (giving out
preliminary versions to selected testers only), you can sometimes be
more productive.

So, in short, I think that there are different models that can be used
with justification.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: gnat-3.10

[Joerg Rodemann]

Robert Dewar (dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu) wrote:
> Ronald says

> Incidentally Richard Stallman is definitely supportive of the notion of
> not releasing free software before it is in an appropriate state. The
> Linux folks have often argued that the Linux distributes should contain
> the latest GCC snapshots, since obviously they fix bugs, but such an
> attitude is not a good idea in the long run.

> This is simply a matter of quality control, which seems in our judgment
> to be as important for public releases of GNAT as it is for any other
> customer releases that we make.

In my opinion this is a very good point you made. Especially as Ada is ---
at least in our mindset --- strongly connected with Software Quality or
Quality Software. Certainly with Ada you could do the same crippled type
of software one often finds in projects using C, C++ or else. At least the
end users often seem not to care about anything like quality. Although they
mutter if somethings goes wrong or worse (system crash, harddisk overwrite).

So I believe it serves the Ada community very well if you provide us (and I'd
like to thank you for making it publicly available to us) with a solid version
of GNAT. this most probably will prohibit opinions and sensations that "Ada
is not useful" just because the compiler is not good work. Surely we often
hear these beliefs about Ada-83 in this group. As to the latest releases of
any software my favourite route is: if you really need a new feature or you
desire it like hell, try out the new ones. Otherwise stick to the running
version until another one seems to be of the same quality. A collegue of mine
is just fiddling around with his systems just because software X requires 
the latest release from Y which only runs in combination with the newest
--- and totally incompatible --- release of Z. It gets really annoying if
Y or Z are essential parts of a system like the OS itself or the development
system.

Greetings

Joerg


--
rodemann@mathematik.uni-ulm.de | Dipl.-Phys. Joerg S. Rodemann
Phone: ++49-(0)711-5090670     | Flurstrasse 21, D-70372 Stuttgart, Germany
-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
rodemann@rus.uni-stuttgart.de  | University of Stuttgart, Computing Center
Phone: ++49-(0)711-685-5815    | Visualization Department, Office: 0.304
Fax:   ++49-(0)711-678-7626    | Allmandring 30a, D-70550 Stuttgart, Germany

Re: gnat-3.10

[David Kastrup]

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Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

> It's your choice to distribute your work under the GPL.  Once one
> chooses to distribute their work to person-A under the GPL, one
> should not be allowed to say "no" if person-B asks for a copy.


No, no, NOOO!  That way nobody will put anything under the GPL because
it would legally require him to set up a proper distribution service.
You can't demand that from freeware authors.

In fact, the GPL expressively frees the author of software from having
to hassle out the details of how to best distribute his software, and
leave that to others and in particular the market (it does not impose
any cost restrictions on this process).

This, of course, also means that if you're a lousy distributor (or
uploader), your software might not get anywhere worth noting.  But to
hold freeware authors responsible for their lack of resources or
management when they provide something for free is foolish.

Fortunately, the GPL does *not* demand that you're required to be a
proper distributor, *unless* you choose to make only binaries
available (in which case you are required to have the infrastructure
for providing the source).  If you don't distribute binaries without
source, you're complying to the GPL, regardless of how few people you
are distributing to.

The GPL serves just a few purposes: that no crippleware without source
gets effectively distributed (people should at least always get the
right to the source together with binaries), and that there are no
limits to redistribution other than that which would stop these
freedoms short.

I certainly would not want to have people go to the slammer because
they put something under the GPL and then their Internet connection
breaks down after they put out the announcement.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Re: gnat-3.10

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <m2u3ijkf7d.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net>, Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:

> that the GPL is powerless to prevent the following scenario:

On further investigation, I find the GPL is also powerless
to prevent my car from running out of gasoline.

There have been 3 other software licensing schemes discussed,
and any of them could be adopted by someone writing software.

Feel free to adopt one and write an Ada compiler using those rules.
Reopen this topic when the compiler passes the validation tests.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: gnat-3.10

[Corey Minyard]

Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net> writes:
> 
> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> > We have a number of large customers on HPUX. They were using 3.09 when it
> > was the current release, most of them have by now switched to 3.10 which is
> > the current product release. As usual, this will be released publicly in
> > the future.
> 
> GNAT is based on GCC, right?  What section of the GPL are you relying
> on to justify making binary releases of modified GPL software to your
> paying clients and refusing to make the source code available to the
> public at the same time?  Under Section 3 of the GPL, it seems clear
> that once you distribute an object code work based on a GPL'd program,
> you must release the source code concurrently.

The GPL never states that you have to make a public release or you
have to give anything to anybody.  It states that if you give someone
a binary release, you have to give them source (which ACT does, the
source is available to customers).  It also says that you cannot
restrict what someone does with what you give them (as long as they
comply with GPL), so ACT asks customers not to release the sources,
but it really cannot require them to.

The GPL is not an easy document to read and requires careful reading
to understand.  Don't make rash statements about GPL without carefully
reading it.  It states that:

    3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
  under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
  Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

    a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
    source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
    1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

    b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
    years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
    cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
    machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
    distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
    customarily used for software interchange; or,

    c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
    to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
    allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
    received the program in object code or executable form with such
    an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

and ACT complies with a) since they supply code on the FTP site with
the binary executables.

What they do not seem to do, which disturbs me a little, is distribute
the GCC base they use to build their stuff on their FTP site.  Since
the patches they supply don't apply perfectly, they are obviously
using a patched GCC base and do not provide information about how to
get it.  But perhaps they are relying on b) above in the GPL for that
specific part, which would be perfectly fine legally.  I'd rather have
it on the FTP site, though.

> 
> And why hasn't the text of the GPL been included in your previous
> source distributions?
> 

Since it is a patch to GCC, it probably doesn't matter.  It might be
better to include it in the src/ada directory for the compiler sources
just in case, though.  The library sources are under a different
license, so they don't apply.

-- 
Corey Minyard               Internet:  minyard@acm.org
  Work: minyard@nortel.ca       UUCP:  minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Corey says

<<What they do not seem to do, which disturbs me a little, is distribute
the GCC base they use to build their stuff on their FTP site.  Since
the patches they supply don't apply perfectly, they are obviously
using a patched GCC base and do not provide information about how to
get it.  But perhaps they are relying on b) above in the GPL for that
specific part, which would be perfectly fine legally.  I'd rather have
it on the FTP site, though.
>>

Generally the patches we supply *should* apply cleanly to the base. That
is certainly the intention. When it is not the case, it is a glitch. Right
now, the patch situation is quite messy, because of the very large delta
between 2.7.1 and 2.8. Virtually all of our gcc patches are incorporated
into 2.8, but not all the 2.8 patches are incorporated into our patch
file, only the ones that Ada needs. Keeping this straight is not easy,
and that is especially true in the case of the many different targets
we support.

We are expecting gcc 2.8 to be released very soon, and this should
greatly simplify the issue of getting the right version of gcc sources
and patches (at least for a transitory moment, the GNAT patch file
will become empty or very close to it).

The current gcc-272.dif is nearly 6000 lines long (this file originall
started out as a very small file of a few critical patches). Furthermore,
things are more complicated now because of the appearence of the 2.7.2.1
release (this was a kind of semi-official release demanded by the Linux
community to fix one not very important bug that got blown out of
proportion), so now we need a gcc-2721.dif as well.

As I say, these problems should completely disappear when gcc 2.8 is
issued. One of the good things here is that all GNAT patches do get
reflected in the main GCC sources that FSF develops almost immediately
(that's because the developer of these patches, and the maintainer
of the FSF version of GCC are the same person :-)

Re: gnat-3.10

[Richard Kenner]

In article <m2n2oiknxv.fsf@acm.org> Corey Minyard <minyard@acm.org> writes:
>What they do not seem to do, which disturbs me a little, is distribute
>the GCC base they use to build their stuff on their FTP site.  Since
>the patches they supply don't apply perfectly, they are obviously
>using a patched GCC base and do not provide information about how to
>get it.

No, the patch file applies to an unmodified GCC 2.7.2.  It is applied
to that base every night automatically.  Yes, some of the patches were
originally derived from different GCC version of GCC sources, so the
line numbers aren't exact, but those exact patches are applied to the
2.7.2 sources each night to do builds.

Re: gnat-3.10

[Robert Dewar]

Cory says

<<The GPL never states that you have to make a public release or you
have to give anything to anybody.  It states that if you give someone
a binary release, you have to give them source (which ACT does, the
source is available to customers).  It also says that you cannot
restrict what someone does with what you give them (as long as they
comply with GPL), so ACT asks customers not to release the sources,
but it really cannot require them to.
>>

To clarify here, we tell customers that we think it is in the best
interests of GNAT if prereleases and wavefronts are not released
generally (for all the reasons I have previously stated), but that is
absolutely right, we cannot require it.

This is a similar situation to the GCC snapshots, which are available on
a limited basis, with a similar note that it is in the best interests
of the GNU project if these snapshots are not distributed. But there too,
it cannot be required, and in fact at least on one occasion, a public
release of Linux on CD/ROM has included the snapshot sources, much to
the consternation of FSF and Richard Stallman.

Richard Stallman is in fact quite insistent on the undesirability of
releasing snapshots generally. His concern is just like ours. It is
one thing to have a single user run into difficulties under conditions
where these difficulties can be immediately addressed. It is quite another

to have a public release where there are problems. In the latter case,
there will be general yelling and complaining, and this does not help

the GCC community at all.

I will reiterate that our release policies are geared to the needs of
the general GNAT consuming public, which is a very large set of people
at this stage, most of whom have very little expertise in getting arond
problems (you would be amazed at the number of reports of installation
problems we have that arise simply from not carefully following the
installation instructions).

Yes, there are a few enthusiasts who would like to fiddle with the
absolutely latest version, but we do not gear our public release
policies to this small group!

P.S. When I mention Richard Stallman's insistence on the undesirability
of releasing snapshots, I am reminded of an incident a while ago in which
we discussed with him the possibility of releasing snapshots with one
public version of GNAT. He got very agitated, and yelled at us (this
was in person, not by email), and we quite understood this reaction :-)

Note that the issue of figuring out appropriate release dates is one that
all vendors of software face. The fact that software is free software
really makes no difference at all. There are people who would love to get
their hands on Windows 97 right now, but Microsoft has decided it is not
ready yet.

Sure, vendors may make mistakes, but the temptation is in the direction
of releasing too early. Just the other day, I suggested an early public
release of 3.10 to the team here, but the discussion overruled the
suggestion, since people pointed out several points (including the issue
of dragging in the tasking stuff all the time) that really need solving
before the public release.

You should understand that I am eager to get 3.10 out as early as possible,
for one thing, I would like people to be able to use the super-neat SPITBOL
stuff that I have added. But it is a long-term mistake to let this
eagerness result in a premature release.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: gnat-3.10

[Pascal Obry]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1287 bytes --]



Well speaking for myself, I have been able to compile (and bootstrap) GNAT
since version 1.x. This is not hard at all if you follow the instructions.
I've been
using -O2 to build GNAT itself and I've never experienced any problem...

I've done this under Solaris and SUN-OS so maybe HPUX is not as easy but
the instructions given by ACT was correct, so why should they gave us
wrong
instructions for HPUX ? Anyway they provide a binary distribution for HPUX
so
they were able to build it no !

Pascal.
--

--|------------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                               Team-Ada Member |
--|                                                           |
--| EDF-DER-IPN-SID- Ing�nierie des Syst�mes d'Informations   |
--|                                                           |
--| Bureau G1-010           e-mail: pascal.obry@der.edfgdf.fr |
--| 1 Av G�n�ral de Gaulle  voice : +33-1-47.65.50.91         |
--| 92141 Clamart CEDEX     fax   : +33-1-47.65.50.07         |
--| FRANCE                                                    |
--|------------------------------------------------------------
--|
--|   http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pascal_obry
--|
--|   "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"

Re: gnat-3.10

[Joerg Rodemann]

Hello folks!

Ronald Cole (ronald@ridgenet.net) wrote:
> Why do your excuses keep changing, Bob?  And why didn't you answer my
> question at the end of my post?  I think we all know why...

> I've clearly demonstrated that the gnat1 binary in the hpux
> distribution is broken... for both your supported *and* unsupported
> users.  Plain and simple.  Of course, you're too proud to fix it or to
> document the actual "fiddling around" required to bootstrap on this
> platform in the src/README.UNIX file because that would be tantamount
> to admitting that you might actually have been wrong.

Makes me thinking...wouldn't it be nice if EVERYTHING I am unable to install,
to build or to develop --- is definitely broken? For if I can't do it, nobody
ca do it? 

I think rather no. Maybe building GNAT is not an easy thing, I do not know. 
Although I managed a whole lot of software installations also from
source until now I failed to build GNAT. Most problably this was due to
lack of both time and experience (that was also my first try to compile gcc).

On the otherhand a collegue of mine sure succeded in compiling, linking and
installing gcc with C/C++ and Ada-support (That was GNAT 3.03 or 3.04.) within
two days. And it only took him that long because the machine was not the 
fastest at that time. As far as I remember he too had some problems which
occured due to usage of the wrong optimization level. Sure it was explained
in the installation instructions. :-} We just did not look at it carefully
enough.

So is GNAT 3.10 broken? I very strongly believe this is not the case: using 
a lot of binary versions for quite a time now --- on different plattform ---
I am sure the binaries are working. And those binaries must be built from
some source, don't they? And I can't imagine that Mr. Dewar or anyone else at 
ACT will change their releases just in order to leave YOU unable to build that
release. Especially if there are some folks who tell you that they've 
succeeded. 

Well, just a few thoughts...if I am able to admit something is or at least
was beyond my capabilies --- why can't you? Just blaming other people does
not help you very much, especially if you do it in such an aggressive and 
unpolite way. 

Have nice day

Yours

Joerg

--
Dipl.-Phys. Joerg S. Rodemann                  rodemann@mathematik.uni-ulm.de
Flurstrasse 21      ---     D-70372 Stuttgart     ---     Tel. (0711) 5090670

       !!!    My former address at Blaustein is no longer valid     !!!

Re: gnat-3.10

[Ronald Cole]

rodemann@mathematik.uni-ulm.de (Joerg Rodemann) writes:
> Makes me thinking...wouldn't it be nice if EVERYTHING I am unable to install,
> to build or to develop --- is definitely broken? For if I can't do it, nobody
> ca do it? 

I never said I was unable to install their release.  I only said that
the gcc-272.dif file seems to contain patches that break the -O level
optimization for some files.  (If you throw in the patches that come
with g77-0.5.20, the stage2 gnat1 coughs up sig 11 on every
invocation.)  This is not insignificant since it was the only
optimization level that could be used throughout to build GNAT on the
pa-risc for all 3.xx releases up to and including 3.07.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>        Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: gnat-3.10

[Jerry van Dijk]

In article <m2vi3kpuay.fsf@devo.ridgenet.net> ronald@ridgenet.net writes:

>$ uname -a
>HP-UX pitbull B.10.10 A 9000/735
>$ ftp cs.nyu.edu
>Connected to cs.nyu.edu.

etc, etc,

Couldn't this be sent through email ? Some of us have to pay for reading
c.l.a.

Jerry.

--

-- Jerry van Dijk  | Leiden, Holland
-- Consultant      | Team Ada
-- Ordina Finance  | jdijk@acm.org

Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Richard Stallman]

The GNU GPL was designed to achieve certain specific goals.  One goal
of the GPL was to ensure that if you have a copy of a GPL-covered
program, you have the freedom to redistribute it.  Another goal is
that if you get a modified version of a GPL-covered program, you get
the source code, or have a way of getting the source code.

Occasionally someone disobeys the GNU GPL.  If they do this with a
program whose copyright belongs to the FSF, the FSF can take action to
make them comply.  But in order to even consider doing this, we need a
precise description of the facts of what is occurring.  We need this
in order to determine whether the GPL is being violated, and also as
the basis for taking action if it is being violated.

When you encounter a bug in a program, if you want it to be fixed, the
way to get it fixed is by sending a precise bug report to the
maintainers.  If you complain to the public about the problem, without
reporting it properly to the maintainers, you should complain about
yourself, because you are the one failing to take constructive action.

It is the same with violations of the GPL.  In order for the author or
copyright holder to take action, you have to make a precise report of
the facts of what is happening.

I recently heard from an employee of Wind River Systems who wanted to
know how they could assign all their changes to the FSF.  This
suggests that they want their changes to be included in a subsequent
GDB release.  This doesn't necessarily mean we WANT to install their
changes; that depends on how much extra work this would make for GDB
maintenance in the future.  For the GNU project, supporting embedded
systems is a side issue.  But if it is not unduly burdensome to
include the changes, we surely would.

Whatever their future plans may be, Wind River Systems is obliged to
obey the GNU GPL when distributing GDB.  If you received a binary of a
modified version of GDB (or any GNU program) from Wind River (or from
anyone else), you should have also received either the complete source
code of the modified program, or a written offer to supply you with
that complete source code subsequently by mail order, valid for at
least three years, for a limited price as required by section 3 of the
GNU GPL.

If you did not get the source or a proper written offer to send the
source, please report the facts clearly and dispassionately to
gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu.