Re: Towards a free GNU Ada

[Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgenet.net>]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>    The current
>    discussion is simply about whether we should wait to publicly distribute
>    versions of GNAT until we feel that they are in sufficiently good shape
>    to distribute, given that many or indeed most people will be using these
>    versions without support. We strongly feel that the premature distribution
>    of versions of GNAT would be harmful to the Ada community, and from both
>    the public postings here, and many private email messages I have received,
>    I have the impression that most people support this position.
...
>    At no time do we distribute subset or crippled versions of GNAT. When
>    we make public distributions, we are distributing the latest version,
>    which includes our full technology. If you have got some other 
>    impression, you are very much mistaken.

Gee, I thought you had said that your policy is to only release
stable, well-tested versions of GNAT publicly.  Of that I'm not
mistaken!

In fact, you did the HPUX community a great disservice by releasing
3.09 with a "latest-version" gcc-272.dif file that contained patches
that were far from well-tested.

>    As I mention above, the issue
>    in the current thread has been whether ACT should publicly distribute
>    versions of GNAT that it does not feel are ready for public release.
>    We don't think this is a good idea.

Neither do I, which is why I bitched in the first place.  And as I
stated earlier, I'll reserve further comment until 3.10 is released
publicly.

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