Re: Thoughts on AdaCore maintaining GCC-incompatible GNAT sources

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

<long and interesting rant deleted>

I agree with your frustration with the fact that AdaCore keeps some of
their source repositories, notably GNAT and ASIS, secret. This is
especially frustrating when you try to build GPS from the trunk, which
usually requires a recent (but secret) version of GNAT.

This frustration is harmful for AdaCore, too, since it has already
discouraged valuable input and contributions (e.g. bug reports from
Dmitry); in fact it has already caused some people to dismiss GNAT as
a "closed" compiler altogether[1].

[1] http://www.libroscope.org/Benchmark-23-logiciels-libres

I too wish AdaCore would maintain the GNAT sources in a branch of the
FSF-GCC repository, merging these sources into the trunk during Stage
1 of the GCC development process. If they were to do that then I'd
probably contribute more; I have a whole suite of tests I could commit
but I'm just not motivated enough to do that (the FSF copyright
assignment letter has been waiting on my desk for several months now).

But I fear only a large paying customer could persuade AdaCore to
publish their sources more frequently and no large paying customer is
interested in that.

Having said that, I think it should be possible to move forward
nevertheless. I would like it if Debian could ship a JGNAT package for
example :)

--
Ludovic Brenta.