Re: GNAT packages in Linux distributions

["Björn Persson" <bjorn@xn--rombobjrn-67a.se>]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> For more than a year I has been using either GNAT Pro or GNAT GPL.
> Recently I installed Fedora and Debian GNAT distributions and discovered
> that basically all two years old bugs known to me are still present. Some
> of these bugs were fixed in GNAT GPL 2009, others in GNAT Pro 6.3.
> 
> So my question is: is there any information or summary on the Web about
> how Linux distributions are related to AdaCore releases? Or maybe somebody
> knowledgeable could create and maintain this as a wiki etc.

I don't think Fedora has a written policy or some such for how compilers are 
packaged, but as far as I know they take a GCC release from the FSF, add a 
few patches related to C, C++ and Java, and compile it with all languages 
enabled. I get the impression that GNAT is in Fedora only because it's part 
of GCC.

That means that before a bugfix from AdaCore ends up in a Fedora release, it 
must first be part of a merge from AdaCore to the FSF's code tree. I've 
heard that they merge only to the trunk during development stage 1. Some 
time later the FSF makes a release branch from the trunk and refines the 
branch into a release. Then the Fedora packagers upgrade the GCC package in 
Rawhide, the development repository, to the new release, which again is done 
only in an early development stage as it can be a fairly disruptive change. 
Later Rawhide is branched, and the branch goes through months of testing and 
bug-fixing and eventually becomes the next Fedora release. Naturally this 
process takes a long time.

Fedora 13 Beta has GCC 4.4.3. I think we'll probably see GCC 4.5 in Fedora 
14, but at the moment Rawhide is at 4.4.4.

-- 
Bj�rn Persson
PGP key A88682FD