Re: Ada and licensing + how to keep the RTL license from propagating :-)

[Simon Wright <simon.j.wright@mac.com>]

Markus E L <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> writes:

> Simon Wright wrote:

On the whole I think we agree up to here from previous posts ...

>> And hence my suggestion that a .o could inherit (GM)GPL-ness
>> from the library.
>
> But have the unlinked modules already included relevant parts of the
> generics (their body, not their interface)? If so, wouldn't that
> mean that truly independent compilation is not possible with GNAT?

If you say

  package My_Integer_IO is new Ada.Text_IO.Ineger_IO (My_Type);

it seems hard to argue that you're not including p/o it rtl, whatever
the compiler.

> Something else: I could add the following at multiple other places in
> the thread, but since I've already taken the effort to write a
> message, I'll add it here:
>
> What hasn't been mentioned yet, is the ultimate GPL circumvention
> device (it has been hinted at, though) and that is the contract
> between developer and customer:
>
>   - Sell them closed _proprietary_ code and absolutely bind them
>     contractually not ever to redistribute that code.
>
>   - Seperately sell them a maintenance contract for a Gnat
>     installation (even and especially take GPL Gnat: Not forbidden to
>     sell a mini-maintenance contract for that to other people) and
>     install Gnat at their site.
>
>   - Offer them a third service contract for maintaining software
>     packages at their site, specifically by compiling and packaging
>     the software in question at their site.
>
> Since bespoke customers will insist on getting source anyway,
> exactly in this case you'll get maximal protection and none of the
> spill over of the license from the runtime.

The developer isn't distributing binaries that should come under the
GPL but the customer certainly would be!

> Since I assume AdaCore stripped the linking exceptions because they
> thought they got pulled over the table by free riders among their big
> customers (they can't seriously hope for small software houses and
> small projects to pay their buy-yourself-out-ofGPL maintenance fees),
> this is rather amusing: It's especially those cases in which (a)
> distribution of the better Gnat within the organization cannot be
> controlled effectively (as long as enough people keep mum and don't
> snitch to AdaCore) and it's exactly those customers that won't want to
> redistribute[1] but keep their source close, so will be happy with GPL
> Gnat[2]. These people won't pay to get rid of the GPL, but rather to
> get maintenance so the buy-and-get-linking-exception incentive won't
> work for them.

My (fairly large) employer is anxious to comply with the terms of the
contract with AdaCore, which is for support and for access to GMGPL'd
tools so that we can make proprietary products. We have no wish at all
to become embroiled in lawsuits about copyright or the GPL. Our
customers insist on knowing the IPR status of the bespoke products we
deliver to them (of course, they get the source, and they're not going
to deliver to anyone else -- at any rate, as someone said, not in the
sense used here!).

Don't forget that the suite is entirely GPL-d so it would be legal to
give a copy to every person in the organisation who was not working on
an AdaCore-supported project! But we don't want to do that either --
for a start, most of them don't use Ada; and for seconds, management
don't really get the GPL and think they have to pay to use.