Re: Ada in Debian: most libraries will switch to the pure GPL in Etch

["Dr. Adrian Wrigley" <amtw@linuxchip.demon.co.uk.uk.uk>]

On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:18:37 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
 
> A license is not the same as a contract.  A contract has to have
> measurable obligations for both parties; a license is only a grant of
> rights to the licensee, possibly without compensation.  No
> compensation, no contract, either written or implied.

After I sent my message, I found this article:
http://www.advogato.org/article/606.html

I have changed my position slightly.

It doesn't seem clear to "the experts" whether GPL is perpetual
or revocable or not :(   And it doesn't seem clear whether it is
a simple copyright licence, or is part of a contract :(
But it is clear that significanty different interpretations would
be placed on the GPL by different legal systems and different
(US) states :(

I do believe that there is "consideration" required of a (English)
contract. GPL *obligates* the licensee to make available source code to
everyone to whom a binary is distributed.  And it *obligates* the licensee
to license source modifications to the recipients of binaries, and
*obligates* the licensee to grant the rights to pass the source to third
parties.  These obligations on the licensee can be extremely valuable to
the licensor.  But the lack of any obligation on the licensee to
distribute in the first place may invalidate the contingent obligation.
Perhaps the contract is formed when the licensee takes actions of
possible benefit to the licensor (such as distribution, modification etc)?
In the end, I don't know how important the contract question is, but
it is unquestionable that damages are caused to parties who seem to
have lost rights to distribute their Ada programs by the recent changes.

The Free Software Definition from gnu.org says:

"In order for these freedoms to be real, they must be irrevocable as long
as you do nothing wrong; if the developer of the software has the power to
revoke the license, without your doing anything to give cause, the
software is not free."

It seems pretty clear from the general industry practice in software
that GPL is not revocable.  The Ada software in question does not
meet this definition of Free Software if the GMGPL licences really
have been revoked.

The strange thing is that nobody seems to benefit from the changes
and the consequent FUD :(
--
Dr. Adrian Wrigley,
Cambridge.