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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,35ce1c7836290812 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@gnat.com Subject: Re: SGI GNAT Question? (Long) Date: 1999/03/04 Message-ID: <7bmbr5$j3p$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 451183115 References: <7bflkk$78i$1@news.ro.com> <7bhlb2$h4n$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <7bia5u$3lt$1@news.ro.com> <7bkasm$rlt$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36DE8585.2B5E6A5C@spam.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x13.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Mar 04 16:20:01 1999 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-03-04T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <36DE8585.2B5E6A5C@spam.com>, spamwithchipsplease@spam.com wrote: > What is 3.11b2 "based" on ? what is its version history ? > does its ancestor tree ever meet up with the "public" > 3.11p version history ? is 3.11b2 GPL ? which came first > the "public" GNAT compiler or the ACT commercial compiler As has been clearly stated before, 3.11p is derived from the commercial version 3.11b2, and yes, of course all ACT software is covered by the GPL. > Am I write in presuming that the commerical version came > first, since if the GPL version came first, then > commercial version being a modification would be covered > by the GPL You are a bit confused here. So let me once again state how we work at ACT. There are basically three kinds of versions of GNAT around. The Commercial versions (GNAT Professional) ------------------------------------------- The commercial versions, designated by letters like a/b/c. These are distributed to customers, and represent the versions that we fully support under support contracts. These are of course all under the GPL, or GNAT modified GPL, as appropriate (the modifications allow the runtime to be used with non-GPL'ed programs). Generally we prefer these not be further distributed by our customers because a) We don't want versions to be distributed publicly till they are in good shape and installation glitch free, since it will only be a nuisance for users with no access to support to be confronted with many versions of GNAT, some of which may have problems. This was for example the case with versions 3.11b and 3.11b1, which had some minor regressions that we cleared up before distributing 3.11b2. b) If a release is in good shape for distribution, we make a corresponding public release. In this case 3.11p is basically identical to 3.11b2. The Public Releases ------------------- THese are our full technology with no kinds of restrictions or limitations. We release public versions from time to time to correspond to stable customer releases of GNAT Professional. Note that we do not provide any kind of support for these versions, and furthermore, we do not make any claims (validation, Y2K, compliance) or anything else for the public versions. For one thing, we have no control over what happens to the public versions once they are released. The distinction in version numbers is helpful, because it makes clear what we support and what we do not support. The "p" versions are our full unrestricted technology, but they do not come with any kind of support from us. Nevertheless they have proved very helpful for student and research use. Wavefront "versions" -------------------- These are designated by a w after the version. They are based on our latest development sources, and have been verified to pass the ACT regression tests, DEC regression tests, and the ACVC tests, but have had no field testing. We make them available to our customers on an individual request basis when there is no other way to correct a current problem. Again, we note to our customers that it is not helpful to the community to distribute these wavefront versions, since they are definitely not in the same well-tested state as our major releases. Current State ------------- We have an internal 3.12 development version with lots of new exciting features, and a number of bug fixes. We expect to release 3.12a for field testing to our customers in the near future, and as soon as we have a stable version, a corresponding 3.12p will be released. Patches ------- There are a few fairly important patches to 3.11 technology that we have developed and are testing. We will release these in the very near future. One of particular interest is a patch to the 3.11p NT version that allows COM files to be built in a straightforward manner. Chinese Walls ------------- No such thing at ACT, the world of open source software does not need such things :-) Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own