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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Simon Clubley Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Adacore and licensing (again), was: Re: State of the compiler market Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2017 20:47:38 -0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: <1813789782.509760763.093426.laguest-archeia.com@nntp.aioe.org> <87varxjouh.fsf@nightsong.com> <250466748.510009784.561340.laguest-archeia.com@nntp.aioe.org> <04f3a0f2-deb4-4b3e-a0bf-68d56bba7204@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2017 20:47:38 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="f17e66f0a9d81d56ac6b7fc383e148d4"; logging-data="12956"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19SxtvDLO4u+u0mHI6ZAB8CpWn8AvK5H8Y=" User-Agent: slrn/0.9.9p1 (Linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:ye3EcEUzcdG3pJ/bcO6qQD1SlCE= Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:33486 Date: 2017-03-07T20:47:38+00:00 List-Id: On 2017-03-05, Robert Eachus wrote: > On Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 1:36:40 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote: >> On 2017-03-01, reinert wrote: >> >> >> >> If you are using Adacore's free GNAT distribution instead of the FSF >> >> distribution then your resulting product will have to be open source. >> >> >> >> Are you aware of this ? >> >> >> >> Simon. >> >> >> > >> > Yepp. And I assume potential users will hesitate to spend much time to learn to use something closed source from a small business :-) >> >> Good. Given that I have had to explain this to more than one person >> over the years who simply hadn't realised this, I just wanted to be >> sure you knew. >> >> Simon. > > Don't scare people too much. Use whatever version of GNAT (or other > compiler) you want during development. When you get ready to ship a > commercial product, the version you use to compile THAT is important, > consult your lawyer type stuff. If all you distribute to your > customers is source code, none of that applies. > I understand what you are saying but you need to look at it another way. The problem is that people are used to open source tools which don't impose any licence restrictions on the code they generate. What if some small outfit simply didn't think to ask the question ? Goto http://libre.adacore.com/ and tell me where it explicitly says on that page that your generated code will be covered by the GPL. You could interpret the language on that page as simply meaning that you are using an unsupported free compiler with no other restrictions on it's use. Even on http://libre.adacore.com/download/configurations there's still no explicit language about this. You have to click through to a link called "technology comparison chart" to finally discover that your generated code will be covered by the GPL. Now assume however that your small potential Ada developer does follow these links to discover that they have to pay serious money to use the Adacore compiler to produce closed source binaries. How do you that will sit with them when they have fully free or even low cost access to a wide range of other language options ? Will they even think to consider that the FSF GNAT is fully free ? Will they even know the FSF GNAT is a different compiler option to the Adacore option ? I like Ada (which should be obvious by now) but the compiler situation is really lousy. Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world