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,d275ffeffdf83655 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Chris Morgan Subject: Re: Ada mode requests (Re: Ada vs C++ vs Java) Date: 1999/02/03 Message-ID: <874sp34287.fsf@mihalis.ix.netcom.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 440326194 Sender: cm@mihalis.ix.netcom.com References: <78kk11$qmd$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <78ks1t$253$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36affcb4.14065782@news.geccs.gecm.com> <36B1F27A.6762@gecm.com> <78tm5g$kb1$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36b7695a.2630918@news.geccs.gecm.com> <873e4oqtz1.fsf@mihalis.ix.netcom.com> <36b89f98.2045516@news.demon.co.uk> Organization: Linux Hackers Unlimited X-NETCOM-Date: Wed Feb 03 3:14:58 PM CST 1999 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-02-03T15:14:58-06:00 List-Id: john@assen.demon.co.uk.nospam (John McCabe) writes: > The point is that there is an *official* ada-mode that is bundled with > GNU Emacs and is maintained by an *official* maintainer. By making > significant changes that affect the generality of the package without > renaming it has confused the issue. Perhaps, and then only if you go their website or a mirror, take their altered version, install it on your computer yourself, and then try to use a different compiler from the one they provide. If you're a GNAT user however, the "ACT Ada mode" for GNU Emacs is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm fairly certain RISCAda from Alsys came with an Ada-mode for emacs too but it was also not the "one true Ada-mode" as it worked with their other GUI tools. > > >I think you will find that Richard Stallman would be quite unconcerned > >that Emacs Ada mode works best with GNU Ada. After all he only > >recently suggested switching GNU libraries to GPL rather than LGPL > >leaving commercial software out in the cold. Of course in this case I > >doubt ACT will agree with him having demonstrated concern for the > >wider Ada community more adequately at this stage. > > I would think that he may be concerned that someone other than the > official maintainer of ada-mode for Emacs is passing off their version > as Emacs' ada-mode. Look, this is free software. There's not really much weight to being an official anything to do with free software. Richard Kenner is the official maintainer of GCC. That doesn't mean the egcs team did anything bad by branching the source code. ACT is the official maintainer of GNAT, but Markus and his merry band of "GNAT for Linux" hackers will probably be distributing patched up versions of the public GNAT releases in the not too distant future. Branching and merging is the way of life for these projects. If the official maintainer of "the one true Ada-mode" likes what ACT has done, he can simply take it, break it into specialised and general purpose pieces, rename the former with GNAT_ and then incorporate those pieces into the distribution. At that point ACT may well switch their work to his latest version or continue on with their own branched version. If you don't like it, DON'T USE IT! DEMAND A REFUND!! This kind of process has given us Gnus, XEmacs and XFree86. In each case some people have said "oh please don't confuse the issue" but something good has come of it (ok, I'm not sure if anyone complained about Gnus, but the official maintainer of GNUS was probably not about to do the work that Lars Magne Ingewhatsit has done). It's a form of healthy evolutionary biodiversity. It's why X/Open is not able to screw over Linux users for X/Xt royalties as the XFree team got in there just in time and branched off a version before the fees were instituted. As to your use of the term "passing off" I think this is unjustified. If you don't go to an ftp directory full of stuff from ACT and grab the Ada-mode from there how does one get "misled" this way? If you do, surely it's up to you? Chris -- Chris Morgan