|
|
|
|
|
|
by Rochus
1846 days ago
|
|
|
You seem to have various misconceptions; I suggest you consult your legal advisor. > Unlike other parts of GCC, GNAT copyright is held by AdaCore due to some special arrangement with the FSF. Adacore holds at least the copyright of their own contributions and therefore can decide whether they want to release their version of GNAT with or without the runtime library exception; the FSF version eventually inherits also the contributions of Adacore, but the Adacore version is more current. > So yes, binaries compiled with that particular compiler are de-facto under GPLv3, and you have to abide by its terms This doesn't have anything to do with source or binary version. The reason is that the binaries provided by Adacore are compiled from their (most recent) source version which they publish under GPL without the runtime library exception. For this (and only this) reason you create a "combined work" when you link your code with the Adacore version of the runtime library. This doesn't change in any way if you compile the GNAT version of Adacore by yourself; you still don't have the runtime libary exception which only Adacore can give for their contributions. |
|
|
So do I.
> Adacore holds at least the copyright of their own contributions and therefore can decide whether they want to release their version of GNAT with or without the runtime library exception.
Indeed.
> the FSF version eventually inherits also the contributions of Adacore, but the Adacore version is more current.
AdaCore contributes to GCC, with some contributions copyright FSF, some copyright AdaCore.
AdaCore retains full rights on the later, limited by whatever private agreement they have with the FSF.
Whether it is more current or not is not relevant to the discussion, and given that GNAT CE has release cycles of 1 year it stands to reason that FSF GNAT gets bugfixes that GNAT CE will only get in 2022.
> This doesn't have anything to do with source or binary version.
I'm now pretty convinced you're reading things that I didn't write.
You seem to be under the impression that dual licensing only works because AdaCore GNAT contains newer files.
However, AdaCore can download stock upstream gcc, remove the linking exception from files they hold copyright over, and distribute this result in source and binary form on their website.
This is due to their unique status with the FSF, something that other companies and private contributors can not do.
Finally, I have never suggested recompiling AdaCore GNAT CE sources will result in a GNAT compiler with runtime exception.
Instead I've pointed out the mechanism of how they achieve this dual licensing: A) unique status as copyright holders alongside the FSF B) strategic inclusion or removal of the runtime exception in each and every file they hold copyright over.