Answer of Request to AdaCore on licensing Status of GtkAda 2.4.0

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

Dear All,

To make it short: A member of the sales departement of AdaCore has
written a mail to me, which at least tries to stipulate that even the
older (pre 2005 versions) of GtkAda can only be used under the
GPL. Which can only mean: The linking exception has been revoked, that
happening at a unspecified time in the deep past and silently so.


The Details:
============

Distribution and Licensing History of GtkAda
--------------------------------------------

The distribution history of GtkAda as far as I can reconstruct it,
has been the following:

 - GtkAda 1.x and GtkAda 2.x up to and including version 2.4.0 have
   been distributed from libre.act-europe.fr with a GMGPL license
   notice at the web site and a not quite so clear license notice in
   COPYING and README and quite clear GMGPL notices in most (almost
   all) of the file headers.

 - GtkAda 2.2.1 is up to this day linked from Freshmeat with a GMGPL
   license notice and is actually served from libre2.adacore.com.

 - Newer versions of GtkAda are distributed from libre2.adacore.com by
   two protocols: CVS and http(s). The web site does not carry a
   license notice. 

 - Per HTTP GtkAda 2.4.0 is distributed standalone and
   carries the same notices in the files as the "other" version from
   old libre. GtkAda 2.8.0 is distributed by HTTP as part of Gnat-GPL
   and is as such included in the GPL license notice of the GNAT-GPL
   distro. The header files have been supposedly stripped of the
   linking exception (I don't remember wether I checked that
   personally or wether I'm relying in other peoples contribution in
   this single item: If it makes a difference, please check yourself).

 - Both versions 2.4.0 and 2.8.0 and all/most of the older versions
   are distributed by CVS with the license notices identical to the
   pre 2005 status when everything was under GMGPL.

 - AdaCore has answered requests by the Debian maintainer, that all
   Software distributed from libre2 is under pure GPL. 

   Despite the fact that they are using the word "downloaded" in
   answers to my own requests rather often, I think it is quite clear
   that the CVS versions are supposed to be included in that: The
   CVS-Server is located at libre.adacore.com.


Clarification Requests to AdaCore
----------------------------------

Since the AdaCore statements on the licensing terms have always been
somewhat fuzzy in the recent past (see the absence oif notices instead
of clear license notices at the sit) and, interestingly enough, the
license notices in the (supposedly) GMGPL and the (supposedly) GPL
versions have been the same, I've been trying to elicit a statement
from AdaCore on this sameness, on the licensing history of GtkAda,
basically to establish

  - when the license switch actually happened, 
  - how GPL source can be distinguished from the GMGPL source
  
in an effort to establish a last GMGPL baseline from which (depending
on the prevailing needs) either

 - existing projects can be maintained with that version

 - existing projects can be migrated to pure GPL in a controlled way.

 - a GMGPL maintenance branch can be forked as ultimate measure when
   necessary.

I've to say that mail exchange with AdaCore was rather slow and
painful. There seemed to be definite reluctance to answer any question
in a meaningful way at all and even after narrowing everything
(preliminary) down to the question of the present licensing status of
GtkAda 2.4.0 AS OBTAINED FROM LIBRE.ACT-EUROPE in the first quarter
of 2005, it took a time to get a definite statement. 


The Result: "Old" GtkAda is also GPL
------------------------------------

What I got, finally, was the following statement:

    "Let me be clearer, the only assumption you can make today for GtkAda downloaded 
     from the libre site in the past is that it is licensed under the GPL."

Apart from the weasel wording like "assumptions" (which still in my
eyes tries to avoid to talk about the actual rights of the licensee /
person in possession of the code and tries to introduce the notion of
assumptions that could be made, as if AdaCore didn't exactly know
which their licensing terms are or were), apart from that I think that
is quite clear: "Don't use any GtkAda version with a linking
exception". Not now and not in the last year. :-(


Opinion
-------

In the past a number of people here have been trying to portrait
AdaCore as hardcore free software activists that only want to free the
user from evil lesser licenses. I've always thought that this is utter
BS and that AdaCore has indeed changed their direction quite a bit
purely out of business considerations (and you're free to draw your
own conclusion on why such a course change (and in rather clandestine
a way) is necessary if the business model is to sell support for free
software).

But retrospectively revoking licenses should not part of any concept
of freedom and I'm hard pressed to imagine such a scenario. I've gone
as far as stating that it is this practice which will dissolve any
meaning of the license notices in the distributions and any concept of
possesion of a certain distribution under a non revokable
license. I'll repeat it. You'd have to check for changes in the
licenses with the distributor every week.

This (the practice of bad license documentation and the (rather
implicit) retrospective revokation, not the GPL per se) damages free
software and just now it's AdaCore doing the deed.

Of course if it comes to talking to potential customers, it's all COTS
from FLOSS and openness. In my book openness starts with creating
clearly understandable, fixed, licensing situations which I can file
and forget after having read them once. AdaCore fails to to that in a
number of ways (license notices on sites, license notices in distro,
non contradictory notices in alignement with the supposed license).

Congratulations to all people still distributing their GtkAda
applications in binary form based on GMGPL sources. Let me repeat:

 "(...) the only assumption you can make today from the libre site in
  the past is that it is licensed under the GPL (...)"

You got pwned. All your base belong to us. 

Regards -- Markus