Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition

[Jeffrey Carter <spam@spam.com>]

Bj�rn Persson wrote:
> 
> Exactly. Until now, the license of Gnat's implementation of the standard 
> Ada library has had an exception just like libstdc++. Now this 
> announcement appears to say that the new edition will only be useful for 
> building GPL software, and that makes Jeffrey Carter and me wonder if 
> perhaps that exception has been removed.

Also, Ada programs link in an Ada run time library. If the run time 
library is GPL, then the resulting program is GPL. All existing public 
GNAT releases from AdaCore have had an exception on the run time library.

One could always use another implementation of the standard library, but 
another version of the run time library is a bit more difficult.

Probably there is no problem, and AdaCore's public releases will still 
be able to produce non-GPL programs. Even if AdaCore decides to remove 
the exemption from the run time library for its public releases, we 
still have the GCC versions, which we can reasonably expect to adhere to 
the goals of the GCC project, which include being able to produce 
non-GPL programs.

-- 
Jeffrey Carter
"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time."
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
E-mail: jeffrey_r_carter-nr [commercial-at]
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