From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,4ffc4a297a9f10e0 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!r29g2000yqj.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Ludovic Brenta Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Thoughts on AdaCore maintaining GCC-incompatible GNAT sources Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 05:37:01 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1456fbc5-f951-4721-8575-0b73a492f275@r29g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> References: <62c8c6c1-6578-4e61-b68a-2c192f34aa94@f20g2000prn.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 153.98.68.197 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1295530621 511 127.0.0.1 (20 Jan 2011 13:37:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:37:01 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: r29g2000yqj.googlegroups.com; posting-host=153.98.68.197; posting-account=pcLQNgkAAAD9TrXkhkIgiY6-MDtJjIlC User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100625 Firefox/3.6.6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:16582 Date: 2011-01-20T05:37:01-08:00 List-Id: 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.