Ada in Debian: dropping support for the Distributed Systems Annex

[xavier grave <xavier.grave@ipno.in2p3.fr>]

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The package gnat-glade in Debian has been providing support for Annex E
(the Distributed Systems Annex) since 1999.  With this package, it is
possible to write programs that are distributed over many computers.

I have found a critical bug that makes the version currently in testing
(gnat-glade 2007) unusable for real-world applications.  The problem is
described in detail in [1].  Now that AdaCore has abandoned GLADE in
favour of PolyORB, there will be no solution to this problem.

Therefore, starting in April 2008, I packaged PolyORB 2.3 for
Debian.  During testing, I discovered other problems [2] that make
PolyORB unusable too.  Consequently I decided not to upload the package
to Debian, but to wait for the next release.

After AdaCore released PolyORB 2.4 (as part of GNAT GPL 2008 Edition)
I resumed work but the problems are still there, whether using gnat-4.3
or GNAT GPL 2008 as the compiler [3].

As a consequence, I am sorry to announce that Debian 5.0 "Lenny",
scheduled for release in September 2008, will not support the
Distributed Systems Annex.

I will continue working on PolyORB in Debian as my time allows. If you
think you can help, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me. The
packaging scripts are on Ada-France's public monotone server [4,5].
Maybe one day I will be able to integrate a rock-solid PolyORB in some
future version of Debian.

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=492100
[2] see thread started by :
http://lists.adacore.com/pipermail/polyorb-users/2008-May/000950.html
[3]
http://lists.adacore.com/pipermail/polyorb-users/2008-June/000984.html
[4] http://www.ada-france.org:8081/branch/changes/org.debian.polyorb
[5] http://www.ada-france.org/article131.html

- -- Xavier Grave (Thanks to Ludovic Brenta for his help on all of this)


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