Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Alec Hill]

I have just tried to visit this extremely useful site
(www.gnuada.org/alt.html) only to encounter the message:

   "This site is closed. Please look at the official places for the GNAT
tarfiles."

Does anyone know what has happened to it?

Alec Hill

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Florian Weimer]

Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes:

> We are also hoping that Linux Threads can be fixed to solve the
> scheduling problems

Ulrich Drepper has indicated that the GNU libc thread
support for the Linux kernel is likely to get rewritten (see
<m3snp2ruas.fsf@otr.mynet.cygnus.com>).

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Florian Weimer]

Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes:

> The ALT stuff has been very useful, and very much appreciated. 
> Fortunately I grabbed the 3.13p ALT package before you shut down. 

The ALT RPMs are still mirrored at http://de.gnuada.org/alt.html...

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <8va26k$bqb$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:

> These discussions were on the main gnu mailing list, open to
> participation by any interested parties (this is a very large

Out of curiosity, exactly which list was it? I was unable to find any
such discussion in the archives of gnu-misc-discuss. I can't find
mention of any more general or "main" list on the gnu website (just
finding gnu-misc-discuss was challenge enough).


--
T.E.D.

http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html


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Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[David Gressett]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2000 02:27:36 GMT, Robert Dewar
<robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:

--- snip ---
>  1) There were some technical problems with shared libraries.
>  The ALT folks felt that they were not severe enough, and
>  decided that shared libraries were valuable enough not to
>  worry too much about the problems.
>
>  2) Precise Ada compliance requires the provision of the
>  alternative FSU threads package, since Linux threads are
>  not Annex D compliant. The ALT folks decided that for
>  simple use, that did not matter.
>
>THe current status is that problem 1) has now been solved in
>the latest GNAT technology, but problem 2) remains.
>
What exactly is problem 1)?

Is problem 1)  fixable in 3.13p, or do we need to wait
for 3.14p?

For problem 2), how simple is simple?, i.e., what kind of stuff breaks
when run with Linux threads?


>I think here at ACT we quite understand decision 2) above, and
>it seems just fine to provide these RPM's with limited
>capability for the purposes for which they were being provided,
>but I explained to Richard that we need at ACT to be
>distributing a fully compliant version.
>
>We will study the issues of providing RPM's with both
>threads packages, and we think it can probably be done for
>the next release of GNAT now that problem 1) is solved (problem
>1 was a show stopper at previous points for ACT provision of
>RPM's).
--- snip ---

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Vincent Marciante]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <8va26k$bqb$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
> 
> > These discussions were on the main gnu mailing list, open to
> > participation by any interested parties (this is a very large
> 
> Out of curiosity, exactly which list was it? I was unable to find any
> such discussion in the archives of gnu-misc-discuss. I can't find
> mention of any more general or "main" list on the gnu website (just
> finding gnu-misc-discuss was challenge enough).
> 
Its in http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/
and the subject is "Re: Why not gnat Ada in gcc?"

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[peter]

In article <8vce9e$fk7$03$1@news.t-online.com>, "Juergen says...

 >
>So www.gnuada.org is back on the net and loaded with
>a new release.
 
thank you Juergen!

we really appreciate all your work for the Ada community,
and the effort you are putting into this on your own
time.

people like you are very valuable, and everyone thanks you
for what you are doing.

may you be blessed.

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[David Starner]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2000 02:27:36 GMT, Robert Dewar wrote:
>In article <8v9vgk$v8j$06$1@news.t-online.com>,
>  "Juergen Pfeifer" <juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> All these discussions have been done behind my back
>> without involving me. There seems to be an ongoing discussion
>> of GNAT packaging issues where ALT is not involved
>
>These discussions were on the main gnu mailing list, open to
>participation by any interested parties (this is a very large
>list, with lots of people being involved), "behind my back"
>is a bit of an odd description of discussions happening on
>the GNU list, given you decided not to participate in this
>list, which is the main place that issues of this kind are
>discussed.

This discussion was done on gcc@gcc.gnu.org, a public mailing list 
with a public archive at gcc.gnu.org. Most of the converstation was 
explaining to Richard Stallman how GNAT was packaged and why, during 
which RMS argued (from a philosphical/politcal standpoint) that GNAT
should be better integrated into the GNU system and not need ALT to 
package it for GNU. 

As a disintrested bystander, I found the whole converstation irrelevant.
RMS was not familar with the Ada for Linux Team, nor was he really familar 
with GNAT. Robert Dewar, the main person in the discussion who was familar
with ALT and capable of changing something, expressed no desire to do so
(beyond the long standing goal of getting GNAT in GCC 3.0, of course*).

In any case, whether or not ALT's package of GNAT is needed, ALT has
done a lot of helpful work on other Ada packages that were not even
vaguely discussed, and is still useful and will still be useful if
someone else (the distributers, hopefully) take over the building
of GNAT rpms.

[Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amusing that this thread,
in a newsgroup so senstive over Ada in all caps, has a subject
referering to LINUX instead of Linux?]

* I know this is an oversimplification, okay? I think most of the
relevant people understand what I mean, and anyone who wants to know
the whole details of GNAT and GCC 3.0 are welcome to look at the
recent (last couple months) archives of gcc@gcc.gnu.org at 
http://gcc.gnu.org

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
http://dvdeug.dhis.org
As centuries of pulp novels and late-night Christian broadcasting have taught 
us, anything we don't understand can be used for the purposes of Evil.
	-- Kenneth Hite, Suppressed Transmissions

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[David Starner]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2000 16:02:17 GMT, Ted Dennison wrote:
>In article <8va26k$bqb$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>  Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>> These discussions were on the main gnu mailing list, open to
>> participation by any interested parties (this is a very large
>
>Out of curiosity, exactly which list was it? I was unable to find any
>such discussion in the archives of gnu-misc-discuss. I can't find
>mention of any more general or "main" list on the gnu website (just
>finding gnu-misc-discuss was challenge enough).

If I'm not mistaken, he's talking about a discussion on gcc@gcc.gnu.org
(archived at gcc.gnu.org). I don't know why he calls it the 'main gnu' 
list, though, because it's just the list for one project (GCC). 
gnu-misc-discuss is a list set up to divert noise and flamewars 
(particularly licensing) from other GNU lists. I've never seen a main 
gnu mailing list referenced on debian-devel/legal or the gcc list, and 
we cc RMS a lot, so if there is one, it doesn't look like it's very active.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
http://dvdeug.dhis.org
As centuries of pulp novels and late-night Christian broadcasting have taught 
us, anything we don't understand can be used for the purposes of Evil.
	-- Kenneth Hite, Suppressed Transmissions

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Juergen Pfeifer]

> I have just tried to visit this extremely useful site
> (www.gnuada.org/alt.html) only to encounter the message:
>
>    "This site is closed. Please look at the official places for the GNAT
> tarfiles."
>
> Does anyone know what has happened to it?
>
Yes, the site is closed and it's uncertain whether or not I'll continue to
contribute. This
doesn't mean that other people may take over the site and continue to
operate it.

As you all may know, I did all the www.gnuada.org stuff in my spare time as
a pure
hobbyist activity. Packaging is boring stuff, but I was motivated by the
overwhelmingly
positive feedback. There obviously is a need for out-of-the-box installation
of GNAT
on GNU/Linux. A lot of students used it, and that was the biggest motivation
for me to help
these guys to discover Ada on GNU/Linux without installation pain.

But it has been brought to my attention that ACT and the FSF see major
deficiencies
in the ALT packages. All these discussions have been done behind my back
without
involving me. There seems to be an ongoing discussion of GNAT packaging
issues
where ALT is not involved any my mail offering to transfer our packaging
knowledge
remained unanswered.

As I'm doing this as hobby the least thing I'm interested in is politics,
flaming and FUD.
Withdrawing my contribution is the easiest way for me to step out of the
fireline. It
has also the advantage that people can now start from scratch without a need
to take
care of an existing and established packaging scheme.

I'll focus on other projects in the meantime.

Sorry for the bad news.

J�rgen

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Robert Dewar]

In article <8v9vgk$v8j$06$1@news.t-online.com>,
  "Juergen Pfeifer" <juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net> wrote:

> But it has been brought to my attention that ACT and the FSF
> see major deficiencies in the ALT packages.

A little background here. Richard Stallman questioned why ACT
was not providing RPM's directly. He worried that our failure to
provide RPM's meant we were neglecting the needs of GNU/Linux.
I explained that there were two problems.

  1) There were some technical problems with shared libraries.
  The ALT folks felt that they were not severe enough, and
  decided that shared libraries were valuable enough not to
  worry too much about the problems.

  2) Precise Ada compliance requires the provision of the
  alternative FSU threads package, since Linux threads are
  not Annex D compliant. The ALT folks decided that for
  simple use, that did not matter.

THe current status is that problem 1) has now been solved in
the latest GNAT technology, but problem 2) remains.

I think here at ACT we quite understand decision 2) above, and
it seems just fine to provide these RPM's with limited
capability for the purposes for which they were being provided,
but I explained to Richard that we need at ACT to be
distributing a fully compliant version.

We will study the issues of providing RPM's with both
threads packages, and we think it can probably be done for
the next release of GNAT now that problem 1) is solved (problem
1 was a show stopper at previous points for ACT provision of
RPM's).

But to be absolutely clear, we always felt that the RPM's
provided at the ALT site have been very useful to a lot of
people, and have always pointed users of the public version
of GNAT in that direction. I know of no post from the FSF
that could even possibly be construed as saying that there
were major deficiencies in the ALT packaging. I have to wonder
if Juergen actually read the thread in question. If anyone was
being criticized in this thread it was ACT for *not* providing
these RPM's :-)

> All these discussions have been done behind my back
> without involving me. There seems to be an ongoing discussion
> of GNAT packaging issues where ALT is not involved

These discussions were on the main gnu mailing list, open to
participation by any interested parties (this is a very large
list, with lots of people being involved), "behind my back"
is a bit of an odd description of discussions happening on
the GNU list, given you decided not to participate in this
list, which is the main place that issues of this kind are
discussed.

> any my mail offering to transfer our packaging
> knowledge remained unanswered.

Well I must say I am a bit non-plussed by this! I received
a friendly message from Juergen on last Monday morning. I
have not answered yet, because last week was SigAda, and
a lot of email is backed up from being away. In that message
he offers to help us with RPM technology, and indeed that
will be very helpful.

> As I'm doing this as hobby the least thing I'm interested in
> is politics, flaming and FUD.

I really did not see anything vaguely like politics, flaming
or FUD on the list, so I am a bit of a loss here.

> Withdrawing my contribution is the easiest way for me to step
> out of the fireline.

Well of course anyone can withdraw their contribution, but I
definitely fail to see any fireline here (anyone who likes is
welcome to checkout the threads in question -- actually I think
it is quite healthy that active discussions of GNAT and how it
should be handled in the framework of the standard gnu/gcc
distributions is very healthy!) Juergen, I think you should
read the thread in question, and I think you will find that
it has been mischaracterized to you!

> It has also the advantage that people can now start from
> scratch without a need to take care of an existing and
> established packaging scheme.

I am not sure of what "take care of" here means. Most certainly
we won't start from scratch in the sense of ignoring what has
already been done. At the same time, we do need to figure out
how to deal with the issue of the multiple thread libraries.
Although most people couldn't care less, we care that the Ada
compiler that is part of the GNU/Linux system should indeed be
fully conforming to the standard.

Hopefully once the transition to the new public tree (which will
of course be 2.9x/3.0 based) is complete, many of these problems
will disappear. We are also hoping that Linux Threads can
be fixed to solve the scheduling problems

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Brian Rogoff]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2000, Juergen Pfeifer wrote:
> > I have just tried to visit this extremely useful site
> > (www.gnuada.org/alt.html) only to encounter the message:
> >
> >    "This site is closed. Please look at the official places for the GNAT
> > tarfiles."
> >
> > Does anyone know what has happened to it?
> >
> Yes, the site is closed and it's uncertain whether or not I'll continue to
> contribute. This
> doesn't mean that other people may take over the site and continue to
> operate it.
> 
> As you all may know, I did all the www.gnuada.org stuff in my spare time as
> a pure

I urge you to reconsider. As Robert Dewar points out in his reply the 
lack of response to your e-mail query is simply due to being away. 
The ALT stuff has been very useful, and very much appreciated. 
Fortunately I grabbed the 3.13p ALT package before you shut down. 
Don't let this misunderstanding escalate any further, your efforts 
are really important!

-- Brian

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Robert Dewar]

In article
<Pine.BSF.4.21.0011191924540.493-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
  Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote:
> The ALT stuff has been very useful, and very much appreciated.
> Fortunately I grabbed the 3.13p ALT package before you shut
down.
> Don't let this misunderstanding escalate any further, your
efforts
> are really important!

I am sure that adapower can put up the 3.13p ALT package, ask
Dave Botton, we can also put it in contrib at NYU.


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Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <8vcjtb$ees$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <8vbhu4$fqh$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> asked about the
> location of the discussion thread.
>
> The thread in question is "Why not gnat Ada in gcc?" and
> the list is gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/.

Ahhh. So it wasn't "the main gnu list", but rather the main gcc list.
Not precicely a list I'd expect a RPM packager to subscribe to, unless
they are in the habit of subscribing to random lists out of paranoia.

> The entire relevant discussion is in this list. The confusion
> apparently arose because Juergen was not following this list,
> but got concerned when someone sent him some out of context
> messages.

I read through the thread, and I certianly saw no mention of ACT
planning to start making their own RPMs. There was one message in
particular ( http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2000-11/msg00259.html ) that,
taken out of context, could lead one to believe that though. Perhaps
that's what happened.

There were several messages in there from RMS marvelling that there
would be a need for a separate group to support the Gnu Ada compiler on
GNU/Linux platforms. But all of the messages I saw from ACT personel
were *defending* that group's (ALT) right and need to exist.

> The ironic thing is that the actual dynamics was complaints
> from Richard Stallman about ACT's behavior. He was concerned
> that NOT providing RPM's meant we were not doing our job :-)

It looked to me more like RMS just didn't know that RPM's were ALT's
focus, and thought (probably due to their name) that they might be a
group created to make the GNU Ada compiler workable on GNU/Linux
systems. Once RPMs were mentioned, his position seemed to be that they
(RPM's) aren't really an issue he cares about, and in any event Debian
packages should be supported by GNU projects before RPMs are.

However, there were some side grumblings in there about how ALT was
originally supposed to be doing much more. (perhaps even maintaining the
GNAT source tree?). It certianly looks like there has been some extra
discord between ALT and ACT that wasn't explictly talked about much. I
have to wonder if some of Jurgen's problems aren't related to that, with
the RPM thing (misunderstanding?) just being the "final straw"...

--
T.E.D.

http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html


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Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Juergen Pfeifer]

After my private mailbox gets flooded with emails trying
to motivate me to continue the www.gnuada.org  site, I
conclude that it was not the right decision to disappoint
the community of ALT users just because I'm upset.
I apologize for that. The community appears to be larger
than I thought;-) Nevertheless I still believe that I had
a valid reason to be upset, but that's another story.

So www.gnuada.org is back on the net and loaded with
a new release.

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Robert Dewar]

In article <8vbhu4$fqh$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> asked about the
location of the discussion thread.

The thread in question is "Why not gnat Ada in gcc?" and
the list is gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/.

The entire relevant discussion is in this list. The confusion
apparently arose because Juergen was not following this list,
but got concerned when someone sent him some out of context
messages.

The ironic thing is that the actual dynamics was complaints
from Richard Stallman about ACT's behavior. He was concerned
that NOT providing RPM's meant we were not doing our job :-)
It was in that context that I explained why we were not
directly distributing the RPM's in question! No one was
saying that these RPM's were somehow evil, just that they
made decisions that resulted in a non-conforming implementation,
and we have an obligation from the validation procedures not to
distribute compilers that do not pass the validation suite.

The whole matter will eventually be OBE when we can provide
RPM's which DO have full functionality, which is in our plans
for the near future. Meanwhile, the existing RPM's are very
useful for a lot of people, and we have often pointed users
of the public version in this direction, since especially for
casual users and students, the convenience of the RPM's far
outweighs the fairly obscure issues of non-conformance. It
is one of the advantages of the open source distribution
model that even though we restricted our distributions to
(arguably less convenient, but more strictly conforming)
non-RPM versions, volunteers were able to take a different
approach that met other needs.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies





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Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Robert Dewar]

In article <9t5j1ts2m031nfi5g9lkj1837ttv6lhvm9@4ax.com>,
  David Gressett <gressett@iglobal.net> wrote:

> For problem 2), how simple is simple?, i.e., what kind of
> stuff breaks when run with Linux threads?

All we can say is that GNAT is strictly conforming with Annex
D of the RM when FSU threads are used, and the semantics in
this case can be determined from the RM. If Linux threads
are used, you get standard Linux threads dispatching behavior,
and you should consult the relevant Linux documentation to
understand exactly what that means. For sure, the Linux threads
are NOT Annex D compliant, but we do not attempt to exactly
characterize the disparity. We do not expect this situation to
change for the 3.14 release, so if you need exact RM compliance,
you must use FSU threads.


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Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Robert Dewar]

In article <8venks$634$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> Ahhh. So it wasn't "the main gnu list", but rather the main
> gcc list. Not precicely a list I'd expect a RPM packager to
> subscribe to, unless they are in the habit of subscribing to
> random lists out of paranoia.

I would recommend that anyone involved in development of the
gcc system (certainly true of the ALT group) can benefit from
following the gcc list.
> However, there were some side grumblings in there about how
> ALT was originally supposed to be doing much more.

It is not a matter of "supposed to be", but rather "hoped to
do". We all know that when you volunteer, you don't know how
much time and effort you have to spend, and these things take
a lot of time. We had a lot of hopes at the Paris meeting of
ACT and the ALT team, but not everything came to pass.

>(perhaps even maintaining the GNAT source tree?)

At the Paris meeting, we had hoped that this might happen,
resulting in a public tree much earlier, but as you know it
did not, and that is why ACT is now taking the lead in
creating this public tree.

> It certianly looks like there has been some extra
> discord between ALT and ACT that wasn't explictly talked about
> much.

Not that I or anyone else at ACT is aware of! And certainly
nothing that any of the ALT people have brought to my attention.
The first I knew of Juergen getting upset was his post to CLA,
he had said nothing to anyone at ACT before this post. The
only mail I had received was a message six days earlier, a
perfectly friendly message offering to contribute his RPM
technology, since we had announced we would be building
RPM's for a future release of GNAT.

> I have to wonder if some of Jurgen's problems aren't related
> to that, with the RPM thing (misunderstanding?) just being the
> "final straw"...

Well you can always sew uncertainty and doubt with wonderings,
but all I can say is that if you know this to be the case you
know more than me.

Robert Dewar



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Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Robert Dewar]

By the way, in case people don't know, I am the official
maintainer of GNAT for the FSF (me personally, not ACT,
maintainers are always individuals or groups of individuals,
never companies, so when I am talking about the public tree
etc, I usually have the hat on as

Robert Dewar
FSF/GNAT maintainer



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Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Robert Dewar]

Just to further clarify, the fact that the ALT team did
not achieve everything we hoped they might from our Paris
meeting was neither a surprise or a disappointment. We
were operating in maximal optimistic mode in Paris, and
part of the important dynamic here was that we were not
somehow depending on volunteer work, so that we were
disappointed when it did not all get done.

In particular, setting up and maintaining a public tree
is a huge effort, not one easily done with just volunteer
effort (after all no one has done it for GNAT yet ...
and we certainly know how much work is involved).

On the contrary, we sketched out a plan of action that
would benefit the GNU/Linux community, and as you know
a lot was achieved. As I have mentioned in the past, I
consider the RPM's very useful to a lot of people, and
indeed the technology developed there will be very useful
to us in distributing RPM's in future (as some of you may
or may not know, the RPM technology for these GNAT RPM's
is particularly sophisticated and effective.

Robert Dewar


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Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Juergen Pfeifer]

After the Paris meeting last year between ACT and  ALT I was also
optimistic that bits of what we discussed could be achieved. But what
happened was, that all the ALT people attending the meeting except me
disappeared, at least nobody started any significant activity to address one
of the topics discussed at the meeting. Building and maintaining the RPMs
eats up a lot of the spare time that I personally can spend on that, so to
move ALT forward it simply needs people to take care of projects. For
some time ALT was simply me.

There was a discussion in Paris about a public GNAT CVS operated by the
ALT group for the purpose of a more open development of GNAT, at least
on Linux. But for sure - at least for me - it was quite clear that
integrating
GNAT into the gcc 3.0 tree is something that should be done by ACT.

Only since I had some delay with the 3.13 RPMs and asked on GNATLIST
for help, a few people offered there help for the packaging stuff. That's
fine
and I hope that we'll move this forward to a system where Ada  programmers
can use some kind of wizards to produce their own ALT compliant RPMs.

J�rgen

Re: Where is the Ada for LINUX Team site?

[Juergen Pfeifer]

> > and I hope that we'll move this forward to a system where Ada
programmers
> > can use some kind of wizards to produce their own ALT compliant RPMs.
>
> ALT compliant RPMs in this case is about the fact that
> RPMSs of sw written in Ada must be packaged in a certain
> way to allow run-time linking with the shared-libraries
> in gnat-*-runtime.
>
Actually it means a bit more. It means that an authors RPM should fit into
the dependency tree of ALT packages, that it relocates the same way
the current ALT packages can do (note: all ALT packages are designed
to be relocatable, i.e. you may use --prefix as rpm option to install it in
a user defined location; this is a prereq. for non-root installs).
Moreover the software in the package should follow the ALT directory
scheme where to store the packages and the objects.

The software in the package itself need not to care about being build
as shared lib or not.

The only real difference wrt. to a shared runtime is, that we changed
the default behaviour of GNAT. Also ACTs version on Linux supports
a shared runtime, but the default is to link statically.

IMHO ALT compliance is therefore more related to package organisation
and overall coherence of the ALT packages and not so much about
the shared runtime default.

The idea behind all that is to allow you to install an ALT package and
just use it without any further configuration, environment settings etc.
Everything fits together.

J�rgen