Re: AdaCore ... the Next SCO?

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

"Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:

> Jeffrey Creem wrote :

> "exposed to the GPL terms"? And what does GreenHills have to do with
> it? 

Greenhills is in the habit of publishing fuddy little articles on
their site how risky (securitywise and regarding exposition to
licensing issues / suites) it is supposed to be using open source as
part of your infa structure or product.

> 
> > At this point, it would seem the only purpose of the public CVS archives
> > is to entrap people to allow AdaCore to sue at will. Comments and
> > threads like this are of course likely to cause AdaCore to pull the CVS
> > archives and that will be somewhat of a shame for free software
> > developers but in its current state, the public CVS archives are doing
> > more harm than good.
> 
> No, I don't think AdaCore want to sue anyone. I would rather think they
> are die-hard, purist Free Software believers, like RMS (i.e. "free up

I agree, it's much more complicated, but neither do I believe in the
"die-hard, purist Free Software believers". This is a business. By
trying retroactively to change licenses from GMGPL to GPL they are
sending a message. They could as well have left the GMGPL. So, if they
took it upon them to change the license (it doesn't change of its own)
there is a purpose behind that.  Add to that, that their Pro-Version
probably still has the linking exception.

> your software or pay"). 

Which never has been RMS's stance, AFAIS.

> Furthermore, they do not seem very eager to
> serve the market of SMEs and one-man shops, who have been asking for
> affordable GMGPL licenses for a long time. Well, that's their business
> decision. 

It is. Trying to change the past, though, seems a bit fishy to me.

> As Marc A. Criley said so rightly, this decision just leaves
> more room to Aonix and RR Software in that market.


> I do agree that AdaCore's decision does more harm than good to Ada's
> attractivity to SMEs. They are the only ones being hurt. The change of
> license has no effect on corporations large enough to use GNAT Pro, or
> on students, hobbyists, or free software developers.

As I mentioned before: Students and hobbyists, even free software
developers are not seldom looking forward to becoming SMEs (as I did
:-). A skill set which places a high entry barrier on that transition
(wether it bee restriction to GPL software only, huge licensing fees
or restriction to a non free platform/environment, i.e. forgetting the
other half of the respective skill set), such a skill set is probably
not very attractive anymore.

So it has an effect on "students, hobbyists, or free software
developers" (And more: I am one, but I cannot develeop only free
software. What I free are spin offs and reusable components from
projects).

Or to put it differently: If I start to using a language as a main
tool as a hobbyits, some of the questions I ask, are like this (I
stylize a bit :-)):

  - Will anybody love/adore/employ me for using that language?

Whereas Ada is great in the coolness department (that's the "adore"
aspect of the thing), it's already rather weak on the love/employ
department. "Ada, what is that?".  This will not become better by SMEs
not using Ada anymore or not even thinking about it. And this affects
the hobbyist. There's hardly ever such a thing as a pure hobbyist.

Regards -- Markus