Re: Questions about Ada Core Technologies

["Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@comcast.net>]

Stephen Leake wrote:

> Right. As I said, there is nothing in the customer contract with ACT
> about not distributing GNAT. But they do informally request it.

Actually, what ACT requests/recommends is not distributing wavefront 
versions.  Wavefront versions are usually a response to a particular 
problem encountered by a (supported) user.  As such they are less 
thoroughly tested than other versions of GNAT.

What about the versions ending in a, not w?  They are betwixt and 
between.  In general if an a version gets to where it has a short 
buglist and no outstanding major problems, it gets converted to a p 
(public) version pretty quickly.  What has been going on recently, as I 
understand it, is that ACT has versions which perform well on some 
platforms but fail on others.  When you have customers with a support 
contract, you can insure that they have a variant that runs on the 
hardware (and OS) that customer uses.

Once the 5.xx versions become stable, ACT will stop recommending that 
the public use 3.15p.  Notice that the 5.xx versions are completely 
available to the public, just not recommended unless ACT has insured 
that they work in your environment.  (And of course they are under no 
obligation to test those versions on non-supported hardware and OS 
configurations.)

As for me, I have been staying with 3.15 because I want the software I 
write to be as widely distributable as possible.  (I just went through a 
painful process with a failing disk.  If it had failed completely I 
would have just gone to my last complete backup.  But when it started 
failing I was able to do one last incremental backup--but it took days. 
  Then I had to build a new disk, and apply all the increments.  Since 
that disk held the partition I use for Ada development, I didn't want to 
change any libraries in the middle of all this.)


-- 

                                           Robert I. Eachus

"The terrorist enemy holds no territory, defends no population, is 
unconstrained by rules of warfare, and respects no law of morality. Such 
an enemy cannot be deterred, contained, appeased or negotiated with. It 
can only be destroyed--and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the business 
at hand."  -- Dick Cheney