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Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

Are you saying if I compile my own GNAT (from source), this exception stays in place and binaries will not be automatically GPL'd?

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Watch out! If you compile the Adacore version of GNAT then you're limited by the license they give you for their version which is GPL without runtime library exception. This doesn't change when you compile their code. With some delay (a year or so) Adacore releases their versions of GNAT with runtime library exception so it can be merged with the FSF version of GNAT.

It's crazy how you are downvoted and people who are downright uninformed both about the licensing and the legal issues are upvoted.

Last time I used Ada, around ten years ago, the situation was exactly the same. This goes to show that the licensing issues around GNAT continue to hamper the ecosystem, contrary to what Adacore like to suggest.

Recently, study results were in the press (e.g. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/pisa-studie-lesen-fakten...) according to which the young have more and more trouble distinguishing between facts and opinions. And everyone and their dog seems to have an opinion on everything, whether they understand any of the subject matter or not (people even seem to resent it when you have relevant qualifications and point them out). So it's no surprise that there are random votes.

Yes, that's exactly how it works.

There are multiple distributions under different licenses.

If you compile this source (CE) - yes your code must be GPL. Adacore's distribution is the most up to date.

The FSF distribution has the normal gcc exceptions. The FSF distribution is normally what's shipped with linux distros. It tends to be slightly older.

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