Re: AdaCore ... the Next SCO?

[M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyman.rosen@gmail.com> writes:

> Michael Bode wrote:
> > This, as I have learned here, has no legal force.
> > You always have to ask the author.
> 
> You have heard this claimed here. I would suggest
> that you do not "learn" it. Should things ever come to
> enforcement actions, a judge is going to look very
> dubiously at anyone claiming that a plain statement
> of license embedded in a file does not apply.

Hi Hyman,

I hope I'll find time for a more in depth answer at another time. For
now only the following:

  - License notices (file headers, COPYING file) between the following
    versions of GtkAda have not changed: 2.2.1, 2.4.0 as from
    libre.act-europe at the beginning of 2005, 2.4.0 as from obtained
    today from libre2, 2.8.0 as obtained from AdaCore CVS today.

  - Nonetheless AdaCore claims that the version(s) now available from
    their site are GPL only (not linking exception).

    When asked for the other 2 Version (2.2.1 and 2.4.0/2005) they
    suddenly fall silent and become unresponsive.

  - 2.2.1 to carries a GMGPL notice on freshmeat up to this day and is
    actually served from libre2 (so they cannot say they don't
    know about this ... )

  - 2.4.0/2005 from libre1 had an explicit GMGPL notice on the
    website.

I think that actually supports the hypothesis that AdaCore obviously
thinks that the license notices in the files are meaningless. Explicit
requests to clarify this point are met with glaring silence.

This is the point, AFAIS, to which Michael refers. And let's be
honest: I presently see no movement from the community to pressure
AdaCore to get their act clean. Since everybody loves GPL (me included
(well, sort of), despite the impression I seem to have left
sometimes), it just seems to be save to assume GPL and forget about
the slightly different notices in the files. That of course is, how
licenses start to loose their meaning, by bad practice. And that is
(even worse) how reliance to notices in the distributions will be
undermined.

> Should things ever come to enforcement actions, a judge is going to
> look very dubiously at anyone claiming that a plain statement of
> license embedded in a file does not apply.

I doubt that shoddy practice with regards to license notices in the
files ever comes to an "enforcement action". After all hardly anybody
will complain, since the actual license is "more GPL" not "less" and
GPL is the morally good license.

Personally I do not think it is good to be fuzzy in these things. If
the trust in current distribution practice is undermined, it'll not
create freedom if I've to find an actual rights holder and get him
speaking to me (which is even more difficult) every time I want to use
an open source package.

Regards -- Markus