Re: SGI GNAT Question? (Long)

[Chris Morgan <mihalis@ix.netcom.com>]

dewar@gnat.com writes:

> Now of course a number of our customers are using later
> versions. We don't make these automatically available
> (Chris in fact did NOT always have his hands on the latest
> version!) We only make them available if in the judgment
> of both ACT and the customer, it makes sense to move to
> what we call a "wavefront version", identified by a w in
> the version number, as in 3.12w, to fix a specific problem.

True. I did get a wavefront once or twice though and used it myself
for quite a while before the next numbered version. I also had a lot
of paperwork to do before changing which compiler the average
developer was supposed to do which was good discipline but tedious. 

> Finally I note that Chris refers to EGCS and Linux. IN fact
> the development situation for these projects is much the
> same as in the GNAT case, with regard to major
> developments.
> 
> Cygnus is doing major work on gcc on its internal tree.
> You won't know the details unless you are a Cygnus customer
> under an appropriate non-disclosure agreement. They will
> synchronize these changes with EGCS at an appropriate
> point. Similarly within redhat and the other Linux
> companies all sorts of major internal development is
> taking place that has not seen the light of day yet.

I'm not familiar with the precise details, but at least some of the
open source projects have open cvs trees (typically read-only to
non-members). In particular though egcs/=cygnus[1] and Linux
kernel/=RedHat and although you are right generally I think the
projects I mentioned are a little bit more open than ACT. I don't mean
this in the negative sense at all and I don't want to get into the
"Cathedral/Bazaar" argument (except to say I'm not fond of the FSF
bashing that has gone on and not at all convinced that ESR is
obviously a better advocate of free/open source than RMS).

[1]Prof. Dewar was insistent that this is true and often not
recognized publically. I guess it's the "major developments" bit that
is key here - perhaps the open informal teams are getting left behind
by heretofore private work I don't know about, it's entirely possible.

Chris
-- 
Chris Morgan <mihalis at ix.netcom.com                http://mihalis.net
 "We're going to start selling Linux to single-party users very
 soon. Q: It's going to be on the menu? A: Yes. You'll go to Dell, 
 pull down "operating system," and click "Linux."         - Michael Dell