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From: dewar@gnat.com
Subject: Re: SGI GNAT Question? (Long)
Date: 1999/03/05
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In article <7bp1m1$tt0$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
  dennison@telepath.com wrote:
> Good point. There's probably no way to guage it at all at
> this point, short of actually going that way.

Well for several years, we issued new releases VERY
frequently, and also provided free support for all
GNAT users, so indeed we have tried this. What we found
was the situation is much as it is now. People can and
do contribute by providing new packages, bindings, etc,
but we do not see (and did not see) much in the way of
contributions to the core technology.

That's not surprising at all, the compiler itself is a
complex piece of software, and just getting fully on top
of understanding it, let alone getting to the point of
making structural changes or even fixing simple bugs, is
not a casual part time occupation (remember that ACT has
the equivalent of about 16 full time people working on the
core technology).

Of course there are exceptions, and we appreciate these
exceptions. In several cases, people who have made these
kind of volunteer contributions are now working full time
for ACT or ACT/Europe :-)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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