Re: Compiling FSF GNAT standalone?

[Patrick <patrick@spellingbeewinnars.org>]

Hi Simon

Thanks very much for your post, it fills in a lot.

After reading an old thread, AdaCore ... the Next SCO?, I am afraid to download anything from Adacore's site. It seems to me that using only the FSF version will give me some layer of protection against a potential patent troll.

Your website has a lot of good information, thanks again for posting about this.

As you were saying there are effectively 3 different release schedules for GNAT, all out of sync. And as you were saying it looks like Adacore makes commits directly to FSF.

If I install gnat with apt-get, then I have gnatpp(with bug) called through GNAT and I can call gnatmake directly on a file too. If I install GCC, I don't get Ada in the vanilla package but if GNAT is also installed I have GCC + Ada. If I call gcc with the right flags then I can compile a file and release the code under whatever license I want but if I call gnatmake can I still release it under whatever license I want? If the gnatmake is being called from a Adacore GPL package then I can't right? If vanilla GCC is not equipped with GNAT but is after GNAT is installed, is the installation process installing a totally new version of GCC or is GCC still calling Adacore's GPL only GNAT somewhere in the process?

I am so confused! If the bloody DOD had of commissioned a free Ada compiler back at the start, the mandate would have had teeth and the programming world might not have been so centred around C.

I am finding the licensing situation around Ada a total pain the the ASIS!