Re: Precisely why can't official FSF GNAT maintainers copy bug fixes in GNAT & its GCC-contained runtime en masse from GNAT GPL Community Edition?

[Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP>]

On 2018-05-04, Dan'l Miller <optikos@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Friday, May 4, 2018 at 2:36:10 AM UTC-5, Simon Wright wrote:
>> 
>> It's not that it doesn't show up _ever_, just that it may well not show
>> up in FSF until the next major release. Depends how significant it is
>> (and how much work it would be).
>
> Everyone, what is the minimum, typical, and maximum latencies that you
> have observed from the time that an AdaCore GNAT Pro paying customer
> receives a bug fix or new feature in the GNAT compiler or its runtime to
> the time that that bug fix or new feature appears in FSF GNAT?
>

One data point:

I have never been able to build a GNAT compiler for VMS Alpha from
the FSF sources even though AdaCore did offer a GNAT Pro version for
VMS.

I don't know if this is due to missing bits in the FSF sources or my
missing out a critical step (VMS has some unique build requirements).
I have successfully built both GNAT compilers and GNAT cross-compilers
in the past however for other targets so I am well familiar with the
overall process.

>
> On Friday, May 4, 2018 at 7:35:42 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> In particular, the FSF cannot just pull code from the AdaCore code base
>> and re-licence it under the terms of the FSF codebase without the
>> permission of AdaCore. AdaCore have to push code into the FSF code base.
>
> On precisely what legal basis could AdaCore assert its rights of
> ownership under the GMGPL or under the USA's copyright law?  Precisely
> which clauses & sentences in the GMGPL permit AdaCore any ownership of
> derivative works of files whose rights to copy were assigned to FSF long
> ago?  Under precisely what legal basis would FSF as irrevocable assignee
> not be the owner of files whose rights to copy (and distribute GNAT Pro)
> were assigned to FSF years ago?
>

The question I would ask is whether the FSF were assigned control of
the master copy of GNAT or whether they were assigned control of a
copy of GNAT which is updated at regular intervals from a master
copy controlled and owned by AdaCore.

I've always thought it to be the latter, but I am willing to be
corrected.

I've always thought of it of something like the situation where a vendor
releases software they control under an open licence but then closes
the source for later versions. This is something the vendor is able
to do because the vendor still owns the code even if they released
the earlier versions under an open licence.

All the vendor isn't allowed to do in that case is to revoke the
licence for the earlier versions.

IOW, my impression has been that AdaCore owns the GNAT source code
even though they make a copy of it available to the FSF and that
copy can be controlled by the FSF under the FSF licence.

Simon.

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