[GAP] [master] what happens with students?]

[Robert Dewar]

Erhard Ploedereder wrote:
> Robert,
> 
> the wording of the GAP license has been changed this June. Last year's
> version was "for academic use only"; this year's version is "strongly
> recommended not to be used for non-academic purposes". 

OK, I did not have the wording at hand. In fact it was me who decided that
the "for academic use only" was entirely inappropriate (both from a GPL
point of view, and from the point of view of what we want to do).

The new wording is about what we consider to be suitable use, not a
restriction on what you can do.
> 
> It is a change MUCH to the better and I truly appreciate it.

Good, indeed this was an important change!

> Marius is wrong in reading the new license this way; indeed, I cannot see
> any limitation in the new license that would prevent distribution to
> students.  (Whether also through a public web page, I have not
> investigated.)

It's fine to use a public web page. We really don't mind if the GAP version
"escapes" widely (though as soon as we have the virtually identical GPL version
at the libre site, it probably helps avoid confusion to use the libre site
for getting hold of this version for general non-academic use).

We would be happy if millions of people get hold of one of these two versions
of GNAT helping to spread Ada. The one exception is that we prefer that people
not use these versions for formal evaluations of our GNAT Pro product. The
reason for that is simple, if people do a no-cost evaluation with us, they
get full support, and we think that's important for people considering the
use of Ada on mission critical projects.

So if you hear of some commercial customer interested in using Ada on a
mission critical project, send them our way, and we will be happy to set
them up with a no-cost evaluation with full support (that's a pretty good
deal).

Equally, while I am at it, we are approaching 100 members in GAP, and we will
make a publicity splash when we reach this number. Help us meet the goal by
letting us know if you ferret out any interesting use of Ada in universities :-)
> 
> Erhard