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From: Andreas ZEURCHER <ZUERCHER_Andreas@outlook.com>
Subject: Re: How to challenge a GCC patch?
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2021 11:58:02 -0700 (PDT)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <ba8b2ae6-a576-4b07-bd4f-f00376353d95n@googlegroups.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <sisjui$thq$2@dont-email.me>

On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 9:20:04 AM UTC-5, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> Le 27/09/2021 à 14:48, Simon Wright a écrit : 
> > "J-P. Rosen" <ro...@adalog.fr> writes: 
> > 
> >> AdaCore has introduced a patch in FSF GCC to remove ASIS support. 
> >> 
> >> AdaCore is free to do what they want with their own version of 
> >> GCC. However, removing a useful feature from the FSF version with the 
> >> goal to promote their own, in-house tool is clearly against the spirit 
> >> of free software. 
> >> 
> >> Does anybody know the procedures set by the FSF to challenge a patch? 
> > 
> > It's not just the patch(es), it's any subsequent changes to affected 
> > parts of the compiler. 
> >
> Right, if they want to contribute further patches, they'll have to keep 
> it ASIS compatible. That's not a reason to divert gcc to support their 
> own private interest.
> -- 
> J-P. Rosen 
> Adalog 
> 2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX 
> Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52 
> https://www.adalog.fr

There does seemingly exist a way to directly compete against AdaCore's increasing proprietarization of GNAT to herd Ada users into GNAT Pro licenses as a higher-revenue way of what was supposed (back in the 1990s) to have been a business model for charging only for •support• of free open-source software (spelled out instead of FOSS to emphasize free and openness of open source).  Because neither FSF's GNAT nor FSF's GNAT Runtime Library are licensed under the GNU Affero Public License (GAPL), it seems that it would be possible to both 1) execute GPL-licensed proprietary-extended FSF GNAT in the cloud and then 2) link against the Runtime-Library-Exception(RLE)-licensed FSF-GNAT's runtime library in the cloud without divulging the source code to the proprietary extensions to GNAT, as long as the copy of the GNAT compiler that resides on VM instances in the cloud cannot be downloaded or distributed.  Then the R&D effort needed to extend GNAT in these proprietary ways would presumably (under regular GPL) not need to contributed back to AdaCore, because no distribution occurred, hence complete compliance (I suspect) with the terms of GPLv3.  As I understand it, this would change radically if AdaCore were to somehow switch FSF GNAT's licensing over to the Affero license.

But until AdaCore (with GNU Foundation's blessing) would switch FSF GNAT to Affero license, for a third-party company who is aggrieved at the loss of ASIS and its supporting constructs within GNAT, that aggrieved company could conceivably raise funds to perform the expensive R&D to put ASIS back into a cloud-only proprietary-extension version of the GNAT compiler without giving their hard work away to AdaCore.  Hence, that aggrieved company could conceivably attract investors to the aggrieved company's business model by having a barrier-to-entry-fortified value proposition in the cloud-only proprietary-extension version of the GNAT compiler.

Yes, of course, the downside would be that every compilation via the cloud-only proprietary-extension version of the GNAT compiler would need an extant working Internet connection—no offline compilation capability in this alternate version of GNAT.  And yes, of course, this would raise the ire of both AdaCore and GNU Foundation, who could then switch over to the Affero license for FSF GNAT, or even author some GPLv4 to address this loophole.  And yes, of course, porting* any ASIS software to RLEv3.1-licensed libadalang would be fraught with far fewer legal complications, and in fact might be less software-development effort as well.

* Porting here of course means practically rewriting from scratch, which is not the usual definition of “porting”.

The posting above is merely a record of my personal musings.  I am not a lawyer.  I haven't passed any bar exam nor been admitted to any bar in any jurisdiction nor have any license to practice law.  The letter & interpretation of copyright law might very well vary in your government's jurisdiction.  But even with the aid of an attorney, only you can form your own understanding of GPLv3 and GAPLv3; your understanding might reach different conclusions than anything indicated in this amateur posting.

      parent reply	other threads:[~2021-09-29 18:58 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 52+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-09-27 10:06 How to challenge a GCC patch? J-P. Rosen
2021-09-27 11:23 ` Stéphane Rivière
2021-09-27 14:18   ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-28  7:38   ` Arnaud Charlet
2021-09-29 16:26     ` Stéphane Rivière
2021-09-29 19:04       ` Emmanuel Briot
2021-09-29 23:29         ` Luke A. Guest
2021-09-30  6:23           ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30  7:53             ` Luke A. Guest
2021-09-30  8:13               ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30  8:26                 ` Luke A. Guest
2021-09-30 10:54                   ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30 12:27                     ` Luke A. Guest
2021-09-30 15:25                       ` J-P. Rosen
2021-10-01  0:37                       ` Randy Brukardt
2021-10-01  0:33                     ` Randy Brukardt
2021-10-01  0:30                 ` Randy Brukardt
2021-10-01  9:41                   ` J-P. Rosen
2021-10-02  9:14                     ` Randy Brukardt
2021-10-04 12:30                       ` J-P. Rosen
2021-10-14  1:48                         ` Randy Brukardt
2021-10-14  6:09                           ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30  7:53             ` Luke A. Guest
2021-09-30  8:16               ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30  8:28                 ` Luke A. Guest
2021-09-30 10:56                   ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30 12:27                     ` Luke A. Guest
2021-09-30 15:28                       ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30  6:19         ` J-P. Rosen
2021-10-01  0:18           ` Randy Brukardt
2021-10-01  9:24             ` J-P. Rosen
2021-10-02  9:34               ` Randy Brukardt
2021-10-04 12:26                 ` J-P. Rosen
2021-10-14  1:40                   ` Randy Brukardt
2021-10-14  6:04                     ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30  5:57     ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30  7:29       ` Arnaud Charlet
2021-09-30  7:52         ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30  8:21           ` Arnaud Charlet
2021-10-01  9:56             ` J-P. Rosen
2021-10-01 12:29             ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-30  8:28           ` Fabien Chouteau
2021-09-27 12:48 ` Simon Wright
2021-09-27 14:20   ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-28  6:55     ` Emmanuel Briot
2021-09-30  6:44       ` J-P. Rosen
2021-09-29  8:58     ` nobody in particular
2021-09-29  9:34       ` Emmanuel Briot
2021-09-29 10:03       ` Simon Wright
2021-09-29 11:03         ` Luke A. Guest
2021-09-29 11:07           ` Simon Wright
2021-09-29 18:58     ` Andreas ZEURCHER [this message]
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