Re: How to get Ada to ?cross the chasm??

["Dan'l Miller" <optikos@verizon.net>]

On Thursday, May 3, 2018 at 12:00:20 PM UTC-5, Simon Wright wrote:
> Not actually copyright, since (judging by the 2017 CE) it's assigned to
> the FSF anyway. It's a licencing issue.

Yes, narrowly speaking, the license itself as a document (with 2 parties exchanging valuable consideration in exchange for agreed-upon terms) is evocation of contract law.  But, the contract in GPLv3 to copy/distribute those files or derivative works thereof (e.g., merged source code; object code; executables) has no legal basis other than in copyright laws' rights to copy.  So in the end, there is not one scintilla of license other than predicated entirely on copyright law in the GPL*; even the patent topics in GPLv3 are tied directly to rights to copy under copyright law.  (If you refuse to copy GPLv3 works & derived works, then you don't need to obey the patent terms in the license because you chose to not evoke the stated rights to copy under copyright law in the license by not using/copying the GPLed software in the first place.)

* At least in proprietary EULAs, some money is (typically) exchanged, which brings in at least one other body of law:  commerce law.  GPL lacks that overt purchase of the rights in the EULA, so rights in monetary-based commercial transactions via, say, the Uniform Commercial Code would be impractical to evoke regarding the GPL, since the GPL is not predicated on end users purchasing their rights (as typically occurs in EULAs).  The GPL grants rights for gratis predicated only on strict obedience to the contract, where using/deriving from the GPLed works is itself the valuable consideration to remind the user/copier to continue complying with the terms of the contract.

[I am speaking from the perspective of conservative law (e.g., Texas) as largely derived from pre-1776 British Common Law.  Some other systems of law (e.g., Napoleonic civil law in portions of Europe & colonial derivatives thereof; communist in PRChina and Vietnam) likely are not as compartmentalized.]