Re: SAL, Auto_Text_IO release

[M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@acm.org> writes:

> M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8a-REMOVETHIS@m-e-leypold.de> writes:
> 
> > Some of us are still stuck with 3.15p. We can't GPL our customers code
> > and being so small we can't pay the ACT support. 

> How small can you be to not afford $15k/year? 
> I've never worked for a small company (I work for the US
> government), so I have no experience with this.
> But it seems to me that if you are paying two people's
> salary, then you aught to be able to afford 15k for a very important
> tool. 

Stephen, I'm not discussing nature or size of my business on
usenet. The point I made in another post was, that entry-costs of
$15000 are quite a hindrance in bootstrapping any business in Ada
software (development) _gradually_.

And concerning the general tone of my message (that on which you
answered here) you should probably have seen the smiley from the very
beginning. Please :-).
 
> > Would you, in the light of that situation perhaps, I ask humbly,
> > consider, to also link the old versions (the last with 3.15p-Support)?
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by "link".
> 
> If you mean "keep the .tar.gz files on your website", I suppose I
> could. 

Yep, that I mean.

> But that implies some level of support, which I don't want to
> do. 

Well, I don't think it does. You could even state that explicitly.

> It's just as easy for you to keep those files on your machine.

It is and I have them. I only thought (suggestion only) it would be
good practice if/when you introduce incompatible changes in a piece of
software, it would be good practice to keep the older versions
available for some time. I imagine that there are still a lot of users
of 3.15p out there, especially on windows (but also on Debian: If one
doesn't want to replace the compiler that comes with the system).

> If you _didn't_ keep a copy, then you need to seriously reconsider
> your backup plan!

Stephen, please don't lecture me. I'd prefer discussion at eye
level.

> Having said all that, what are you using SAL for? I never hear from
> users.

Not yet. I staged them in our source tree and there were
considerations to use SAL instead of Martin Dowies backport of
Ada.Containers as working mechanisms in some library. This has come to
nothing yet. I'm not sure wether it will done now, since the old SAL
is now "unsupported". We'll probably have to postpone integration of
SAL until after we have done the transition to some newer version of
GNAT.

Regards -- Markus