From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,7684e927a2475d0 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!56fb6cac!not-for-mail From: "Marc A. Criley" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20030225 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: can one build commercial applications with latest gnat and other licenses related questions... References: <1150717184.087134.177850@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1151050924.969806.284410@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> <449d2a28$0$11075$9b4e6d93@newsread4.arcor-online.net> <449d5c03$0$11074$9b4e6d93@newsread4.arcor-online.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 17:50:20 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.153.86.240 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net 1151257820 4.153.86.240 (Sun, 25 Jun 2006 10:50:20 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 10:50:20 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:5008 Date: 2006-06-25T17:50:20+00:00 List-Id: Michael Bode wrote: > I'd be one, let's say somewhere below 1000� 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