Re: Thoughts on AdaCore maintaining GCC-incompatible GNAT sources

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>]

deadlyhead <deadlyhead@gmail.com> writes:

> I actually can't see any downside to AdaCore developing on a GCC
> branch.  

It would take them more time than they currently spend developing Ada.
Somebody has to pay for that time.

It would also invite more requests for support, which would take more
time. 

> They could release wavefront releases for their paying customers, just
> as they currently do, but they'd get the benefit of a rapid release
> cycle with full community input just like the rest of GCC. 

GNAT Pro has significantly higher quality at release time than FSF Gnu
C++. That's what AdaCore customers pay for. Opening up the developement
process to community input would detract from that quality, or require
significantly more effort to bring the community input up to the
expected quality.

> They could integrate the Debian-style fix for libaddr2line, etc, and
> stop maintaining their own custom binutils, too, and maintain public
> sync for all their technologies. 

They are intelligent people; they know this. I don't know their reasons
for not doing so. Some of it may just be inertia, but I trust they are
making good business decisions.

> How many more people might use Ada if the GNAT technologies were as
> accessible as the rest of GCC?

I don't know. I suspect the AdaCore marketing department has a much
better answer to that than anyone else. Although it's probably slanted
to "how many people will pay for support of ...".

> As for my activities that prompted my original rant, I'll keep working
> on JGNAT for GNU/Linux, probably attempting to build against GCC-trunk
> from here on out.  If I can get that working, I'll make sure the
> entire world knows.  Also, since I use Debian as my base OS these
> days, I'd also like to see if I can backport the build to the Debian
> GNAT sources, in which case I'd approach Ludovic specifically.
>
> BTW, I can't stand Java, it makes me feel dirty just to read it, but I
> am compelled to develop Android apps, hence trying to build JGNAT.  I
> may try binding to the Android NDK at some point, too, but that
> requires GNAT-ARM crosstools.  One project at a time...

Ah, I was (vaguely) hoping to write Ada for Android (I'm frustrated with
some of the apps on my current aging Palm). I didn't realize that meant
compiling for the JVM.

Thanks for your efforts!

-- 
-- Stephe