Re: can one build commercial applications with latest gnat and other licenses related questions...

["Marc A. Criley" <mcNOSPAM@mckae.com>]

Michael Bode wrote:
> I'd be one, let's say somewhere below 1000ￜ for the GPL Edition with
> GMGPL licensing. In fact I asked AdaCore for such a beast. Doesn't
> exist an probably never will.

Just trying to find some vaguely relevant post to hang this on...    :-)


A fair amount of the discussion in this thread was covered when AdaCore 
first announced GNAT GPL 2005, and there was much wailing and gnashing of 
teeth at that time.

I thought a lot about this back then, and came to a few realizations about 
developing Ada software with GNAT GPL 200x and trying to make money selling 
fully GPLed software, which were posted in some form back then, but let me 
try to summarize them here:

1) So you develop a GPLed application and sell it, either over the internet 
or in a shrinkwrapped box.  Okay, so what's the problem?  You're making 
money.  Unless it's some trivial program, or your target market is 
developers, _nobody_cares_ that the source code is available.  Put it on 
the CD or DVD--the accountant who bought your tax prep program isn't going 
to rebuild the executables.  Worse, it's in Ada, who's going to set up an 
Ada development environment to rebuild it?  :-)

2) So you develop a GPLed application and sell it to customers with whom 
you establish an ongoing support relationship.  If it's a non-technical 
product, see (1).  If it's technical and they are interested in source 
code, verbally _request_ that they not redistribute the distribution, e.g., 
AdaCore customers.  Alternatively, verbally notify them that if they 
redistribute the source you will not renew their support contract, i.e., 
Red Hat Enterprise customers. Doing this IS legal! I requested 
clarification directly from the FSF and got this response from the FSF 
Licensing Team:

"There is nothing in the license to prevent this; in fact, Red Hat does
exactly this with customers of their support services. This is not
quite the same thing as placing restrictions on the software -- after
all, the customers are still legally able to exercise all their rights
under the GPL. There is little we can do to prevent them from putting
themselves in that position."

The FSF clearly does not like this practice, but it is legal, because the 
customer can still exercise all aspects of the GPL, they just may lose the 
ability to get support from you the developer.  A business cannot be forced 
to provide or extend a support contract to someone it doesn't want to.

Hope this muddies the waters.

-- Marc A. Criley
-- McKae Technologies
-- www.mckae.com
-- DTraq - XPath In Ada - XML EZ Out