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From: Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: What exactly is the licensing situation with GNAT?
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 01:02:56 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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Date: 2014-11-12T01:02:56+00:00
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On 2014-11-12, David Botton <david@botton.com> wrote:
> Some viruses can be good, some viruses can be bad, and some viruses that are good are being abused.
>
> By using the GPL in a compiler run time, initial boot loader code,
> etc. AdaCore places a "license virus" on your software,
> i.e. regardless of your intended license it is now under the full GPL.
>
> That may be a good thing for OS tools even compiler tools,
> etc. perhaps you may even prefer the GPL, but when placed in a
> compiler it is an abuse designed to make an open source compiler

s/compiler/compiler's runtime/

surely ?

> Shareware at best.
>

And what no-one has mentioned so far this time around is that you
simply would not be having this conversation when talking about
normal C/C++ compilers.

This whole licence situation is yet another barrier in the way of
getting people to use Ada.

Simon.

PS: I've been around the Ada world long enough to remember the days
when GtkAda was GMGPL. That little fiasco killed my use of Ada in
GTK based front ends stone dead so I can understand how someone new
to the Ada world might look at the GPL compiler situation and then
go and choose another language which simply doesn't have those
issues.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world