From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,5efeb51ce0b50b63 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.moat.net!news.linkpendium.com!news.linkpendium.com!newsfeed.pacific.net.au!nasal.pacific.net.au!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition From: David Trudgett Organization: Very little? References: <1126619435.487674.77550@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:MTvsnr8SCz2qPhr1ZQiBGW6XBb0= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 09:33:38 +1000 NNTP-Posting-Host: 61.8.37.195 X-Complaints-To: news@pacific.net.au X-Trace: nasal.pacific.net.au 1126654692 61.8.37.195 (Wed, 14 Sep 2005 09:38:12 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 09:38:12 EST Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4639 Date: 2005-09-14T09:33:38+10:00 List-Id: Jeffrey Carter writes: > Santiago Urue�a wrote: >> I've just seen this at AdaCore's Libre site, and it seems it will be >> released very, very soon!: >> http://libre.adacore.com/gpl_notice.html >> In my opinion this is great news for the entire Ada community, and >> not >> only for Free-software developers. > > Interesting. In the past, AdaCore's public releases were suitable for > producing non-GPL SW. I wonder if "This new Edition will provide Free > Software developers, that is developers that distribute their work > under the GPL" means the runtime and libraries will be GPL, rather > than GMGPL, forcing the resulting executables to be GPL. Even if it is the case (and I have no idea) that the modified GPL is not used, it still does not mean that resulting executables are "GPL". It would only mean (at most -- see below) that those executables couldn't be formally distributed except under the GPL. This means that in-house proprietary software is completely unaffected by the GPL. "The GPL permits anyone to make a modified version and use it without ever distributing it to others." ... "It is essential for people to have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately, without ever publishing those modifications." -- http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html That said, I believe the spirit of the GPL (applied to compilers like GNAT) is (or should be) to protect the software itself (compiler) from being hijacked by proprietary interests. The GPL doesn't apply to the output of programs, and an executable binary is just the output of the compiler. Therefore, according to this logic, programs compiled by a GPL'ed compiler are not themselves under the GPL (unless you make them so). In that regard, note: Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them? Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code. Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons--for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input. As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs. So, the only possible grey areas with GNAT would be (a) if it copies parts of itself into its output; or (b) statically or dynamically links to GPL'ed libraries. In regard to libraries, we note in the case of GCC: Does the libstdc++ exception permit dynamic linking? Yes. The intent of the exception is to allow people to compile proprietary software using gcc. So, can anyone comment on whether (a) or (b) actually applies to GNAT? I have my doubts that (a) would apply, since it doesn't seem to apply to GCC. As for (b), that would be a matter of library licensing, and not of GNAT's licence itself. David -- David Trudgett http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/ All these men who were going to murder or to torture the famishing and defenseless creatures who provide them their sustenance had the air of men who knew very well that they were doing their duty, and some were even proud, were "glorying" in what they were doing. -- Leo Tolstoy