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From: Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: ACT and the GPL (once again), was: Re: Cairo bindings and e-mail
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Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 01:29:47 +0000 (UTC)
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Date: 2014-12-11T01:29:47+00:00
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On 2014-12-10, Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote:
> David Botton writes on comp.lang.ada:
>> The content of the e-mail link shout it change in the future is:
>>
>>> Many of the GtkAda source files contain the text of the GMGPL
>>> exception; some do not. Are you saying I should not rely on the
>>> presence or absence of the exception in the individual source texts
>>> obtained from this repository:
>>
>> That's correct, headers on source file have no/little legal
>> significance.  The main and simple message is that all the software
>> available via the libre site, including svn.eu.adacore.com/anonsvn is
>> provided under the pure GPL license.
>
> AdaCore have changed this policy again very recently[1].  Now their
> official statement is that files downloaded from their site are under
> the license stated in the files.
>
> Their previous policy ("everything is GPL") was in fact illegal; they
> had embedded some non-GPL software into theirs (e.g. several years ago,
> a copy of Berkeley DB was embedded in GPS) but they had, and still have,
> no right to change the license of this third-party software.
>
> So, I think their new policy is a big improvement.
>
> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-ada/2014/10/msg00023.html
>

Are we sure it's an official ACT statement and not just someone's opinion ?

That statement also doesn't match up with David's quote from ACT's email
above, which is presumably more recent than the 29-Oct-2014 Debian email
linked to above.

It's also clear from that quote above that GtkAda is considered to be
pure GPL as far as the distribution in Debian is concerned because that's
where the Debian notes say Debian obtains the original package from.

(This came up a couple of months ago when Jeffrey Carter thought the
Debian distribution was GMGPL and I looked into the situation to find out
what was going on.)

I've never forgotten that prior to GTK 2.4 ACT employees were describing
GtkAda as using a GMGPL type license, but that suddenly changed with
GTK 2.4 to pure GPL so I read _any_ ACT statements in this area very
carefully.

Sometimes ACT can be their own worst enemy when it comes to promoting
Ada. :-( How often do the C++ people have to worry about this stuff ?

(The C++ gtkmm binding is listed as LGPL; I just checked before posting.)

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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