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: 103376,24ac770ebf312b7a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.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, 24 Sep 2005 07:18:19 -0500 From: Ludovic Brenta Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Next Ada compiler for Debian: the votes so far References: <87u0gjd8kj.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <87zmq7zi2g.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <1127373639.533145.315510@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1127389845.587230.25850@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <874q8dvu5p.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 14:17:57 +0200 Message-ID: <87psqyslqi.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110004 (No Gnus v0.4) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:ODiQ+i2f+8tPc9z4DPQXGL6L1ow= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: 83.134.245.58 X-Trace: sv3-it6XtW6ONLM9CgEcW2eVbngOE+zyThbKNc/ZFR4B+ngJ00TCXlEgYBZgphTo7A16EIpj76ACVuxAuUR!iWnCkNkWpGIYbEQl7G/Vgwp3ITU/nW20tZAs4PdhFO+FxR0IoWFoLixM58losT95Mu6gaB4mmw== 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:5095 Date: 2005-09-24T14:17:57+02:00 List-Id: Dr. Adrian Wrigley writes: > Ludovic Brenta wrote: >> But what is the platform that you are targetting today, and that >> concerns you? If you distribute proprietary software, you can always >> make your own platform, or distribute GNAT 3.15p binaries with your >> software. > > I am targeting x86 Linux. I use 3.15p and GLADE (and other Ada > libraries) There are bugs in both of these tools which bring me > problems. My next machine will be x86-64 to get increased > addressing and speed. > > I should probably go to a dual Opteron, GNAT GPL 2005, PolyORB etc. > but the time, cost and upheaval will be significant. I want to be > confident there will be real benefits and the tools will all work > properly together. With GNAT GPL 2005, there is no guarantee but if I were you I would trust AdaCore for a distribution of excellent quality. If you trust the platform, a lot of the pain of migration goes away. But you are right: all transitions are painful. > I am not distributing my software at present, so I don't have a > direct interest in the choice of Debian compiler. I run Debian and > Red Hat at present, but I'm considering moving to all Debian. In > future, I may want to distribute Ada binaries or source, and don't > want the opportunity to be obscured by changes in licensing of the > Ada libraries. So, you've been complaining loudly against the GPL for libgnat, because of the remote possibility that you might someday decide to distribute binary-only software? Since you use both Red Hat and Debian, you know first-hand how much better Debian is, especially as an Ada development platform. But using Debian is dangerous. For one thing, it is addictive, and for another, when comes the time to deploy your binaries on other platforms, you'll find they lack half the Ada libraries you need, and that the other half (which they do provide) are buggy. You can solve this problem in a number of ways: * Target Debian and only Debian, which runs on 12 hardware architectures anyway. Who needs anything else than Debian? Make sure your target is the latest stable release of Debian, not "testing" or "unstable", and you'll get the additional benefit that the platform will not move constantly. * Assume that your targets provide *no* Ada support; assume they only conform to the Linux Standards Base (i.e. a certain glibc and a certain GCC compiler for C and C++, but no Ada). Link your binaries statically against libgnat and any other Ada libraries you require, making sure that you use GMGPL sources of these libraries (either from GNAT 3.15p or from CVS). * Assume your targets provide GCC 4.0 with Ada support, but no ASIS, no GLADE and no other libraries. The rest is as above. > What I'd like to see is a new version of GNAT and various libraries > to become predominant. A version suitable for all purposes. A > version with full Ada 2005 support, when possible. A version for > all the main Debian platforms. (I also run an Debian ARM system > sometimes). With robust Annex E and ASIS support. I fear this this > will not happen. And I don't think ACT is minded to make it happen. > But I may be mistaken. If I were AdaCore, I would feel deeply offended by the mass rejection of the GNAT GPL 2005 Edition that occured on this forum, and by the pervasiveness of the "selfish argument". So, I wouldn't count on AdaCore going out of their way to please the people who complained. If you don't want to use GNAT GPL 2005 Edition, then you have to fall back on plan B, namely Debian Etch in your case. Debian Etch will support amd64 and several other hardware platforms beyond those supported in Sarge (namely i386, powerpc and sparc). Debian Etch will have some Ada 200y features, but probably not all. This depends on how GCC 4.1 turns out. ASIS will probably work. I'll take it from Martin Krishik's SourceForge project because that's GMGPL. GLADE will probably not work at first. I'll take it from AdaCore's CVS and try to compile it against GCC (3.4, 4.0 or 4.1, not decided yet). I will probably ask you, Adrian, for help in this area. Debian Etch will not be as good as GNAT GPL 2005 Edition, and it will arrive much later. But it will support amd64. > Perhaps I have been barking up the wrong tree, but it was commented > earlied in this group that the 'exception' clauses for GtkAda and > one or two other libraries had been removed. I haven't seen this > myself. I had got the impression, however, that GLADE wasn't being > maintained. Checking the AdaCore CVS suggests I am wrong on this. > But activity is moving to PolyORB, which doesn't seem ready for > mission-critical Annex E use. The special permission has been removed from the GNAT GPL 2005 Edition. If you take the sources from CVS on gcc.gnu.org and libre.adacore.com, you still get the GMGPL. Therefore, if you want: * the latest GNAT * Ada 2005 * amd64 support * the latest libraries * support for all "x86 linux" distributions * and the GMGPL, then go get the sources and compile them for yourself. I will do the same thing but only for Debian. You may choose to wait (several months) until this happens, or help me with it. And please understand that no matter what, it won't be as good or as up-to-Ada-2006 as GNAT GPL 2005 Edition. > Maybe as time progresses, we'll see that AdaCore will support a new > "unversal" GNAT and libraries all under GMGPL type licensing. Let's > hope so. I think it is a mistake to hope so. It is much more productive get down to work and build our own GMGPL platform. -- Ludovic Brenta.