Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is now available

[Jeffrey Carter <spam@spam.com>]

Samuel Tardieu wrote:
> 
> Do you think that the DoD (the funder of the early GNAT versions)
> intent was to restrict the use of GNAT to programs using the GPL
> license and to AdaCore (which didn't exist) customers?

The DOD program that resulted in GNAT was created specifically to build 
a freely-available compiler that could be used to create proprietary SW. 
The issue of the run time, including parts of the run time that might be 
added to a program by instantiating a generic, are why NYU's lawyers 
came up with the GMGPL in the first place.

Until recently public GNAT releases from AdaCore filled this 
requirement. More recently, the GCC/FSF GNAT has been filling it, and 
many here seem to be happy using the GCC 3.4 and 4.0 versions of GNAT.

AdaCore said some time ago that they had transferred the public version 
of GNAT to the GCC/FSF effort, so I didn't expect to see any further 
public versions from them. This release simply muddies the water, 
increasing the number of types of releases by 1 (paid/supported, 
academic, public/general, and now, public/GPL-only).

-- 
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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