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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,3e26dfa741e64e5f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,UTF8 Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.scarlet.biz!news.scarlet.biz.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 15:40:15 -0500 From: Ludovic Brenta Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is now available References: <1126875543.239666.325290@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <3467d$432b0af1$49956f8$22115@ALLTEL.NET> <9810292.iL9QpZxmrM@linux1.krischik.com> <87mzmbbn6x.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:39:47 +0200 Message-ID: <8764szbf8s.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110004 (No Gnus v0.4) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:c+W25iKR6CFn7TE0dllxkZkwH7Y= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 83.134.243.59 X-Trace: sv3-65qb9jiM/T1zCnSZH8ic0epx04Be3hYj9oS6JLzcNXQ4KOdiWr/xq9wYBiq0eWTrqOnLYI5PUNed/hM!hcykDMbsTmHes8mfzBPqgMY86EI1b6n3axaZCkV2VBDxyrt5hBGFT2eBMQaENtAVMhzm3vlksg== X-Complaints-To: abuse@scarlet.be X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@scarlet.biz X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4843 Date: 2005-09-17T22:39:47+02:00 List-Id: Björn Persson writes: > Ludovic Brenta wrote: >> Yes, fixing and extending GNAT is difficult and requires huge amounts >> of time to build up the expertise. Fixing and extending libgnat >> requires less time and expertise. If you are contemplating a fork, >> you can restrict the fork to just libgnat, since the compiler's >> license poses no problem to anyone. > > The standard library packages may not be so hairy, but what about > the runtime? I would have thought it would be difficult to > understand and modify. I also expect it to be tightly coupled to the > compiler so that it would be hard to update it without looking at > AdaCore's GPL code. The coupling with the compiler is no problem from a legal standpoint, because the compiler's license has no effect on the executables produced with it. Porting libgnat to a new platform is difficult, but not quite as difficult as maintaining the compiler. In terms of technical difficulty, and broadly speaking: standard packages < run-time < compiler > (Does libgnat contain both the library packages and the runtime?) Yes, libgnat contains the System.* and Ada.* packages, the GNAT.* packages and any supporting run-time packages necessary for the target platform; in particular, support for interrupts, tasking, and exceptions. -- Ludovic Brenta.