Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:39:22 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov writes:
>> On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:39:56 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>>> I suggest you concentrate on one thing and only one, then.  If you
>>> are interested in Debian packaging, fine, let that be your one area
>>> of expertise.  If you'd rather learn Ada and develop programs with
>>> it, I suggest you install Debian stable (possibly in a chroot or
>>> VirtualBox) and forget about all these pesky issues.  I've decided to
>>> concentrate on packaging precisely so that others, especially
>>> beginners, can concentrate on programming.
>>
>> Absolutely. Packaged Ada for Debian and Fedora is a great relief to
>> the situation of not so distant times when GNAT GPL was the only, very
>> uncomfortable, option for Linux.
>>
>> Yet, there is still the problem that people wishing to make their work
>> available to public must nonetheless dive deep down into the mess of
>> dbpkg and rpmbuild. Something should be done about it. If we could not
>> bring Linux Ada policies in order, we should have some backend for the
>> GPR which would automate packaging.
> 
> In the mean time, here is my advice for upstream authors of free
> software: don't do packaging at all.  Instead, do like the FSF and
> provide only the sources of your software; let specialized packagers do
> the rest.  Make their job as easy as possible:
> 
> - avoid recursive Makefiles
> - use GNAT project files (if you use GNAT)
> - do not include copies of third-party software in your software
>   (instead, document which third-party software is required and where to
>   get it).
> - collaborate with them by reviewing and accepting patches
> - use a public version control system
> - use a public bug tracking system
> - use a public mailing list with searchable archives
> 
> Your "cross-platform" distribution should therefore consist of sources
> and very simple instructions for building them.

Hmm, while I agree that a pure Ada sources distribution is much easier to
handle, and make should be send back to hell, the problem is that if Ada
software uses any third party libraries, be it Ada or anything else, that
becomes a huge problem for the end user to follow the dependencies.
Packaging has the advantage of keeping versions consistent.

Ada community reached the stage when pre-packaging becomes a requirement,
IMO. Your own contribution is the best proof of that.

> A common, cross-platform policy for Ada would be desirable.  Debian and
> Fedora have already started to collaborate towards a common directory
> structure (to be implemented, on Debian's side, in the relase after
> Debian 7 "Wheezy").  But even with a common policy, other things are
> likely to make packages incompatible at some level anyway.  For example
> various distributions might choose different sets of packages to
> include; different versions of GCC as the default compiler; all combined
> with different release schedules.

It was discussed, so I only repeat that we need a dedicated Ada resource
like sourceforge or freshmeat to accumulate Ada projects and serve as the
upstream for Linux/Windows/Mac/... distributions. This resource could
indeed automate packaging, at least theoretically it could straight from
the code base and the dependencies maintained by the resource.

But for now, people *must* package their work for Debian and Fedora. (I say
this to our Lapack guys, sorry)

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de