Re: ANNOUNCE: DTraq Released

[Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>]

M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8a-REMOVETHIS@m-e-leypold.de> writes:

> "Marc A. Criley" <marccriley@earthlink.net> writes:
>> 
>> DTraq 1.000 for GNAT 3.15p is licensed using the GNAT-Modified GPL,
>> i.e., GMGPL.
>> 
>> DTraq 1.100 for GNAT GPL 2005 is licensed using the full GPL,
>> although the instrumentation portion that is compiled into the
>> client remains GMGPL, for what it's worth.
>
> Is that a change in policy or do you think/know that Code released
> for use with GNAT 2006 cannot have the linking exceptions (for this
> part of the code at least)?

(below, 'you' means Marc)

I'm slightly out of the loop on this one, since my paid work has an
AdaCore support contract; for my own OSS work, my position is:

* code meant for a user to include in her product, GMGPL

* code intended for tutorial/example/prototype, no restriction

* code that's part of the toolset, GPL

So for instance the Makefiles and GNAT Project files would be GPL, and
so would code generation stylesheets.

I think the lack of restriction on code meant to be customised is
quite important; "this is customisable, here is the default, I place
no restrictions on the use you make of it".

As a potential customer of yours, I would want the part of your code
that's linked with mine in my product (your runtime) to be GMGPL,
regardless of the compiler you use to develop it[1]. If your code uses
GNAT.Sockets, that means that if I want to distribute a non-OSS
product in binary I can do so provided that I use a version of GNAT
that is GMGPL -- so no change there! (and using AdaSockets would make
no difference, since the rest of the runtime is in the same boat).

Unless I've misunderstood DTraq, though, the recorder side _isn't_ in
the same boat, it's not intended to be released to my customers; so
the licence terms aren't so crucial. Clearly the binary distribution
terms have to match the compiler runtime, but why should the source
code?

That said, I can't see any reason why the 'instrumenter' and
'recorder' parts of DTraq shouldn't be pure GPL anyway, since they're
not intended to be part of my distribution; and even if they were I
could comply with GPL terms for them without affecting my own
product. I guess it might be different if my work and the recorder
were integral parts of my overall product, but that doesn't seem very
likely.


[1] Do you think there's any issue with generated code? One might
think that fragments of text copied into generated code could carry
licence implications with them. I adapted the GMGPL & bison terms
(bison copies text into generated parsers):

     As a special exception, when portions of this file are copied by
     a stylesheet processor into an output file, this file does not by
     itself cause the resulting file to be covered by the GNU General
     Public License.  This exception does not however invalidate any
     other reasons why the output file might be covered by the GNU
     Public License.