Re: Ada and licensing

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

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

> Simon Wright wrote:
>
>> Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@nbi.dk> writes:
>>
>>> Simon Wright wrote:
>>>> Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen wrote:
>>>
>>>>> I suppose you could also compile with GNAT, and send a library
>>>>> to your customers. Still no RTL involved.
>>>>
>>>> I think that would be the same as distributing an executable.
>>>
>>> Not quite.
>>>
>>>> Not aware of anyone having discussed this, but as far as I can
>>>> see a .o file would be GPL'd just as much as the .exe's built
>>>> from it.
>>>
>>> No.  The GPL is on the run-time library.  And .o files are not
>>> linked, and thus not infected with the license of the run-time
>>> library.
>>
>> No. If that were the case, the LGPL could apply.
>
> That's the old "using an interface or including a header already
> makes it a derived work" hypothesis. I'm not sure how well that
> would hold up under pressure and from a software engineering point
> it's certainly nonsense (even if copyright law would provide a lever
> of enforcing this point of view). I've always held that people
> trying to push that agenda should be punished for crimes against
> proper software engineering. (Mind you, nothing against you
> personally, I'm refering e.g. to those that want to make all Linux
> kernel modules GPL because those -- nolens volens need to read the
> kernel header files during compilation).

I think that if your code had

   pragma Restrictions (No_Generic_Instantiations);

(is there such a beast?) *and* if your compiler vendor released a
sharable image of the rtl under the LGPL you could probably get by.
So far as I know libgnat.so and friends aren't released under the
LGPL.

But it was always Robert Dewar's view that generic instantiation
effectively imports the library's source into your binary -- hence the
GMGPL. And hence my suggestion that a .o could inherit (GM)GPL-ness
from the library.