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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,4eb65fab6deaa097 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Chris Morgan Subject: Re: Lack of Mature Tools (was: Lockheed Martin, Green Hills, etc.) Date: 2000/04/26 Message-ID: <87wvll7a5h.fsf@think.mihalis.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 615765750 Sender: cm@think.mihalis.net References: <4eaJ4.23498$hh2.538870@news.flash.net> <8d4lpa$ffu$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8d531v$vcr$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8d57mo$4d9@chronicle.concentric.net> <390472E9.E0A17BC6@ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> <8e5hr4$imt$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Trace: typhoon2.gnilink.net 956723674 151.202.100.25 (Wed, 26 Apr 2000 00:34:34 EDT) Organization: Linux Hackers Unlimited NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 00:34:34 EDT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-04-26T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar writes: > Actually, as far as I can tell, this project did not make use of the > commercial version of GNAT, but used some unsupported public version > obtained somewhere from the net (and certainly not from Ada Core > Technologies). Yes, among the technologies mentioned on the slides, > it mentions that GNAT is the most stable, but still this is NOT the > commercial version of GNAT. In fact we can't even be sure that it > is the same bits that we originally placed there. The advantage of > freely available software on the net is precisely that, it is freely > available, but You seem to be trying to scare people off using the public version even if they do not need support because you "can't even be sure that it is the same bits" you "originally placed there". I think you can, and also, in particular, I find the following statement to be misleading : >the downside is you can never be sure exactly what you are getting. Are you really suggesting that if I see an announcement of a new public release of gnat on comp.lang.ada and I then download a file with that version number from cs.nyu.edu in /pub/gnat that it may somehow be corrupted? The wrong file? Altered by random strangers? This seems like a surprising claim to me. I'll bet you (i.e. ACT) can be pretty sure that those bits correspond exactly to the ACT build of that public version just with a sum(1). If you published checksums on www.gnat.com everybody else could be fairly sure as well, no matter where they actually downloaded the file from. Better checks are also easily provided (e.g. MD5) as seen on many other open source or free software projects. Not doing that is perfectly fine, but claiming the resultant lack of verifiability leads to authenticity problems seems very weaselly to me. The value I found in having an ACT support contract pretty much started flowing after I got the bits myself and installed them. Sorry ;^) Chris -- Chris Morgan http://mihalis.net