Re: gnat-3.10

[Corey Minyard <minyard@acm.org>]

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