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: 1025b4,959627a08fbc77c5 X-Google-Attributes: gid1025b4,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,30a9bb3017fa58dd X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Samuel Mize Subject: Re: GNAT versions ( was :Ada compiler for PC?) Date: 1999/04/23 Message-ID: <7fqjo2$1hmi@news1.newsguy.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 470117790 References: <3718ccb6.3581307@news.mindspring.com> <3718d384.254178@news.pacbell.net> <1999Apr20.073527.1@eisner> <7fi2k3$lv9$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <371C99DD.F15ADC4B@spam.com> <7fkkoi$ui$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <371DF7CE.C7D7C1F@spam.com> <1999Apr21.142617.1@eisner> <371E2F2A.662C8F4F@spam.com> <7fndu7$im4$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <371F8B02.9BD7045F@spam.com> <7fomsh$p8u$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <86lnfjx5rx.fsf@coulee.tdb.com> <7fq3mh$16m1@news1.newsguy.com> <86n1zz43dt.fsf@coulee.tdb.com> Organization: ImagiNet Communications, Ltd. User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-981002 ("Phobia") (UNIX) (AIX/3-2) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,gnu.misc.discuss Date: 1999-04-23T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In comp.lang.ada Russell Senior wrote: > Thanks for the review. I am not accusing anyone of anything. I am > asking a question. Of the three replies to my question that I saw > this morning, none of them addressed the question. That's because there are some people who take an angry stance about this and ride it into the dirt. (I mean, agree with them or not, but they go on and on and on...) So people here are a little twitchy. I'm glad this isn't your intent. > It has been noted that ... > recipients of the `non-public' [GNAT] releases tend not to share > them with others, despite their legal right to do so. I am curious to > know what goes into their calculus for deciding not to. That is all. There are two kind of non-public releases, "wavefronts" and "commercial releases." A wavefront is an in-development copy that may not be fully tested, hasn't been regression tested, hasn't been through QA, and may be quite unstable. It's given to a customer who badly needs a new capability, or perhaps the fix to a specific bug. A commercial release is a formally released product that ACT has stabilized, put through regression test, beta test and QA, and generally believes is ready to be released as a commercial product. ACT doesn't want wavefronts passed around widely, because they're a snapshot from the middle of development, and they expect it to have problems. They don't want to be flooded with bug reports on code that they weren't done with in the first place. ACT's customers go along because they understand and accept ACT's rationale. They may also want to encourage ACT to give them other wavefronts later. Bear in mind, ACT has no obligation to do so. They are only obliged to release code when its binary is delivered to a customer; and even then, IIRC, only to that customer. ACT's customers seldom bother to distribute the commercial version, because ACT will publish it soon as a public version anyway. One might be able to beg a copy from a buddy who's a supported customer if, for instance, one were having trouble with a compiler bug that is fixed in that release. Nothing wrong with that. Once the commercial version is fully stable, ACT cuts a new copy of that release, which is the "public" version. The only change from the commercial version is the version number. This will lag the commercial version. This is partly because this is non-paying work, and partly so that any bugs which are found by early adopters can be fixed for the public version. (Again, to avoid a flood of redundant bug reports when the thundering horde of free users gets hold of the product.) So, where's the conflict coming from? Some people would like to see wavefronts issued publicly and periodically -- even frequently. I believe some want to feel they have the very "cutting edge technology" compiler, some may have wanted a more-recent version in the hope that a specific bug was fixed, and some just want to look into the development process. These people are not in a position to get wavefronts from ACT under ACT's current policies, and they get frustrated and vocal about it. I feel that there are fair arguments on both sides. I'm biased toward the ACT position in this specific case, and that's probably clear from my writing. GNAT is large and complex, and it's unlikely IMHO that adding a few thousand more cooks will improve the broth. On the other hand, I certainly understand the frustration of people who would like to be more involved in its evolution. I hope they get together, set up some kind of outside-ACT development tree, and coordinate with ACT. One of the goals of GNAT was to encourage experimentation with new ideas and extensions to Ada, and I feel this would encourage work in that area. But on the other other hand, this isn't ACT's job. People who want to have a parallel-and-coordinated development effort must set it up on their own. IMHO. I hope you've found this helpful. Best, Sam Mize -- Samuel Mize -- smize@imagin.net (home email) -- Team Ada Fight Spam: see http://www.cauce.org/ \\\ Smert Spamonam