Post #3583441
2026-07-04 12:54 UTC
@techokami@woof.tech Yeah, Alire is what you find nowadays when looking for a non-Linux GNAT build. Sadly I have never found a clear answer about what license the Alire GNAT builds are under, so I always assumed that they still have the same restricted license as GNAT-GPL... because if not, surely they would clearly tell you "yes, you can use this to compile GPL-incompatible code, unlike before"?
This all didn't give me much confidence in the state of Ada for individual/OSS use, rather than corporations.
Replies (1)
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@techokami@woof.tech 2026-07-04 13:11
@dgelessus@mastodon.social Did some more research into this... there's apparently three versions of GNAT: AdaCore's GNAT Pro (commercial software), AdaCore's GNAT CE/GPL (FOSS but forces everything made with it to be GPL), and FSF's GNAT (the one I knew about, part of GCC). GNAT CE/GPL is apparently discontinued due to the licensing confusion, leaving only GNAT Pro and FSF's GNAT, which both allow for compiling non-GPL projects. Alire distributes FSF's GNAT, which is the main way to get non-Linux builds of the compiler. Alternatively, https://github.com/alire-project/GNAT-FSF-builds/releases/