Re: Questions about Ada Core Technologies

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@acm.org>]

Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org> writes:

I'm a paying customer of ACT, so I know the answer to some of these
questions.

> - Will ACT make more "p" releases of GNAT in the future?  They told me
>   privately they would, but has anyone else heard about a public
>   statement from ACT?  

The last I heard from them on this topic (about 6 months ago) was that
they had not decided.

>   Is it too much to ask for a release date or time frame?

Yes, it is too much to ask :).

> - Have ACT really switched their day-to-day development to the FSF?

I don't know. I also don't see how this is relevant to Debian.

> The changelogs suggest so, in which case I can suppose they merge
> selected changes to GNAT Pro in their private repository?

I assume they are maintaining at least a separate branch, if not a
separate repository, but I really don't know.

> - Will the next GNAT Pro be based on FSF's GCC, or on ACT's private
> repository?

5.02a is current (released in March 2004). It is based on FSF gcc
3.2.3 (that's what gcc --version says).

As usual, ACT has made no firm statments about future plans.

> - Does ACT recommend anyone switch to GCC instead of GNAT 3.15p? If
> so, which version of GCC?

I believe they would say "test it with your application; use whichever
is best for you".

> - Does ACT request that customers not distribute copies of GNAT Pro?

No. To be specific, there is nothing in the support contract that says
this. They do point out that the non-public releases are non-public
for a reason; they are more likely to contain bugs, and therefore
should only be used with a support contract. Customers tend to agree
with that position.

Again, I don't see how this is relevant to Debian.

> - Since GNAT Pro, as a derivative work from GCC, is necessarily
> distributed under the GPL, is the above request not an infringement
> of the GPL?

In short, the GPL says "If you give someone a binary, you also have to
give them the source". 

The GPL does _not_ say "if you give one person a binary, you also have
to give everyone else the same binary".

So even if ACT was requesting that customers do not distribute
non-public releases, it would not be violating the GPL

> - Just out of historical curiosity, could someone send me a timeline
> of GNAT Pro releases? Especially the ones after 3.15p went out: I
> heard about 3.16a, 

Feb 2003, gcc 2.8.1

> 3.16a1, 

June 2003, gcc 2.8.1

> 3.17w, 

The "w" means it was a "wavefront"; that's a bug fix for a particular
bug; not an official release.

> 5.01?, 

5.01a July 2003, gcc 3.2.3

> 5.02? 

5.02a March 2004, gcc 3.2.3


> etc. and I would like to know what version of GCC they used as a
> backend.
> 
> [1] I mean I got *friendly* flak, kind of like error messages from an
> Ada compiler :)

The latest version of your Debian policy looks good to me, except for
the part about ACT requesting non-distribution of non-public versions.

-- 
-- Stephe