Re: GNAT packages in Linux distributions

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Dmitry A. Kazakov writes on comp.lang.ada:
> 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.

http://people.debian.org/~lbrenta/debian-ada-policy.html

See section 2.3.4 FSF releases and (now outdated) Appendix B. You will
see that the GCC 4.3 you are using is roughly equivalent to GNAT GPL
2007; Debian testing has GCC 4.4 which is roughly equivalent to GNAT GPL
2008.  Note that I backport some bug fixes into the Debian version of
GCC.

> It is important with respect to submitting bug reports. I already did
> some to Debian. But then I started to discover more and more. Because
> the bugs I am talking about are known fixed, in my eyes, it does not
> make any sense to submit them again. (Provided, GNAT will not be
> developed independently on AdaCore, rather than merely packaged)

"known fixed" to whom?

The bug database at AdaCore is private (and with good reason).  If you
use the FSF version of GNAT, you should use the corresponding bug
database: Debian, Fedora or GCC upstream.

There are a few contributors external to AdaCore that provide bug fixes
into the FSF GCC, sometimes ahead of AdaCore; I normally backport such
fixes into the Debian version.  Eventually, all bug fixes end up in both
GNAT Pro/GPL and in FSF GCC.  The keyword is "eventually"; the time lag
can be months or years as you noted.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.