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: a07f3367d7,18e1c2a3dc43651f X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.204.130.7 with SMTP id q7mr1205785bks.2.1345455789532; Mon, 20 Aug 2012 02:43:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.180.88.195 with SMTP id bi3mr1775648wib.3.1345455788820; Mon, 20 Aug 2012 02:43:08 -0700 (PDT) Path: m12ni117292bkm.0!nntp.google.com!news1.google.com!yt1no31818208wib.1!news-out.google.com!q11ni223483305wiw.1!nntp.google.com!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!news.mixmin.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx04.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Ludovic Brenta Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:39:22 +0200 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: <87ipcdhph1.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> References: <109c5cee-48ba-442e-b53f-cfd37995cc2d@googlegroups.com> <87harz84r3.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <4783e98d-2473-4525-9172-bc663574054a@googlegroups.com> <87txvyopah.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <87r4r2hazn.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <39b3fwwezkby$.17d07u5q93aw7$.dlg@40tude.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="c5ea95e24c40df9c772a7d158e90bc2d"; logging-data="12606"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/ChpCdWZX6/BRw1W4LhIG6" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:AZ5BuGIvvZ6BYOeyOfVJPxR1zPs= sha1:hrA9GrPmRI5L4u7BPIxhAdGwzEY= Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: 2012-08-20T11:39:22+02:00 List-Id: Dmitry A. Kazakov writes: > On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:39:56 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote: >> I suggest you concentrate on one thing and only one, then. If you >> are interested in Debian packaging, fine, let that be your one area >> of expertise. If you'd rather learn Ada and develop programs with >> it, I suggest you install Debian stable (possibly in a chroot or >> VirtualBox) and forget about all these pesky issues. I've decided to >> concentrate on packaging precisely so that others, especially >> beginners, can concentrate on programming. > > Absolutely. Packaged Ada for Debian and Fedora is a great relief to > the situation of not so distant times when GNAT GPL was the only, very > uncomfortable, option for Linux. > > Yet, there is still the problem that people wishing to make their work > available to public must nonetheless dive deep down into the mess of > dbpkg and rpmbuild. Something should be done about it. If we could not > bring Linux Ada policies in order, we should have some backend for the > GPR which would automate packaging. In the mean time, here is my advice for upstream authors of free software: don't do packaging at all. Instead, do like the FSF and provide only the sources of your software; let specialized packagers do the rest. Make their job as easy as possible: - avoid recursive Makefiles - use GNAT project files (if you use GNAT) - do not include copies of third-party software in your software (instead, document which third-party software is required and where to get it). - collaborate with them by reviewing and accepting patches - use a public version control system - use a public bug tracking system - use a public mailing list with searchable archives Your "cross-platform" distribution should therefore consist of sources and very simple instructions for building them. A common, cross-platform policy for Ada would be desirable. Debian and Fedora have already started to collaborate towards a common directory structure (to be implemented, on Debian's side, in the relase after Debian 7 "Wheezy"). But even with a common policy, other things are likely to make packages incompatible at some level anyway. For example various distributions might choose different sets of packages to include; different versions of GCC as the default compiler; all combined with different release schedules. -- Ludovic Brenta.