email exchange w AdaCore - letter1

AdaCore.let1 (text/plain), 5.87 KB, created by George Shapovalov (RETIRED) on 2006-01-14 16:16:02 UTC

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Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 11:52:07 -0500
From: Robert Dewar <[e-mail]>
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To: George Shapovalov <[e-mail]>
CC: [e-mail],
 [e-mail]
Subject: Re: inclusion og gnat-gpl-2005 in Gentoo Linux
References: <[e-mail]>
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George Shapovalov wrote:

>Dear AdaCore representative.
>
>I am a developer for Gentoo Linux. I would like to thank you for producing a 
>nice peace of software and releasing it to the public, as well as to inform 
>you that we are processing gnat-gpl-2005 for the inclusion into Gentoo 
>package repository. 
>  
>
You are certainly free to mirror or refer to the libre site in any way
you want, but I do have some concerns with your general model
of distribution from a GPL point of view.

There are two ways of distributing sources that meet
GPL requirements.

The first is to provide a letter that provides an offer to
distribute the software, valid for all third parties, etc.
You can then just pass on this letter.

Or, you can distribute thre sources on the same basis
as the program is distributed.

That's the way GNAT GPL is distributed

>We have an ability to deal with the situation like that by placing fetch 
>restriction into ebuild (the option I used at present) and thus requesting 
>user to take a necessary action of registering with the vendor (and, if 
>necessary, paying) and then manually placing the downloaded source in the 
>appropriate directory for further processing. This allows us to provide our 
>users with the benefit of automated install and package tracking even for the 
>commercial packages. However this seems unnatural for the package that is 
>distributed under the terms of GPL.
>  
>
This does not seem to meet the GPL requirements, since for example if 
AdaCore
dropped the site, the user would be left with no way of getting the 
sources. Of
course we intend that they be made available on a contined basis, but 
the GPL
does not permit you to depend on that.

I think you have to go get a copy of the sources (which of course you 
can do,
though it is not easily automatable, that's true). Perhaps we can also 
supply
an appropriate letter so that this reference is clearly valid. We will 
investigate
that issue.

I am not giving official legal advice here, just raising some concerns, 
you need
to deal with the legal issues yourself, consulting an attorney if you 
have any
concerns.

>Consequently I would like to request your permission to either mirror the 
>source that I recently downloaded and used in the creation of the appropriate 
>ebuild or to provide me with the static URL that could be included in the 
>ebuild.
>
>You can find additional information related to addition of gnat-gpl to Gentoo 
>repository in a bug #111340 here:
>http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111340
>
>
>Few questions/remarks:
>
>1. The source filename is simply gnat-gpl-2005.tgz. Here, I suspect, 2005 
>stands for the language standard specification rather than a particular 
>version of the compiler. Does this mean that this is a release of some 
>development snapshot and future updates will be released simply by 
>repackaging the source under the same name? In such a situation the only 
>feasible option for us is to mirror a particular (tested) source snapshot at 
>our location adding necessary version information.
>  
>
No there will be new names

>2. The source that I downloaded on 10 Jan 2006 seems to be missing files 
>prj-attr-pm.ads and prj-attr-pm.adb. The build was failing and I had to add 
>them from the gnatgcc source, which resolved the issue.
>  
>
We will check that out, the sources should indeed be complete

>Please do not hesitate to contact me <[e-mail]> or other Gentoo Ada 
>developers <[e-mail]> if you have any questions or if you would be 
>interested in Gentoo carrying ebuilds (with appropriate restrictions enabled) 
>for the professional version of the gnat compiler.
>  
>
>Thank you in advance!
>
>George
>  
>