[gtkada] License question

[Stefan Bellon]

Hi!

First of all I should note that it was me who asked Damien that
licensing question, so my comments here may be biased. ;-)

Jeff Creem wrote:

> Having said that, as long as you don't distribute any binaries based
> on pure gpl and don't attempt to distribute GtkAda and claim the
> exception applies I would guess you are ok (meaning, I would do
> something like this myself -- not meaning there is no risk).

Yes. Additionally I think he can release his work under whatever
license he likes (even dual-licensing it). The people who use his work
in combination with other work then have to check for incompatibilities
between different licenses and the implications this may have. But this
is not the problem of the author, but of the licensees. But IANAL.

> Realize of course that in providing these libraries as GMGPL, the
> only people that can exercise the exception clause of the GMGPL for
> your bindings are customers of AdaCore or people that have older pre
> GPL minus exception clause versions of GtkAda (Of course we all know
> that never existed according to many).

I thought up to including version 2.4.x of GtkAda the GMGPL releases
have been freely available? At least the Debian packages have been
GMGPL licensed, IIRC.

> For something potentially this coupled to GtkAda, you may want to go 
> pure GPL for a few reasons

> 1) You can feel better about being less worried about some sort of 
> license confusion scare with the copyright holder.

I think he could even make a conditional license like "when used
together with a GPL version of GtkAda, the GPL applies to CairoAda,
when used together with a GMGPL version of GtkAda, the GMGPL version of
CairoAda applies". This way there is no confusion at all, but the
license is always exactly the same like the GtkAda version, thus not
leaving any way for confusion. But again, IANAL.

> 2) It promotes 'free' software.
> 3) Releasing as GMGPL only helps AdaCore customers (since only they
> can really exercise the right). By releasing bindings as pure GPL
> that AdaCore may want/need to release a similar products  of in the
> future you get to create some FUD and confusion about the license
> and copyright ownership of any of these similar bindings. That seems
> like a good thing.

This sounds a bit like anti-AdaCore attitude and does not really help.

You can as well look at it from the other point of view: If he released
the whole of CairoAda under pure GPL (which is not at discussion right
now, if I understand correctly, but just the Gdk and RSVG part), then
AdaCore customers were not able to use his work.

Greetings,
Stefan

-- 
Stefan Bellon