Re: GNAT Binary Distributions : GPL or Not ???

[Simon Wright <simon@pogner.demon.co.uk>]

Ada Development at shagbadger <Ada95@shagbadger.demon.co.uk> writes:

> 1) Why a glibc2 linked version of gnat 3.10p has not been released ?

There have been lots of posts on how to do this (something to do with
the size of sigset?? anyway, look up the archives of chat@gnat.com)

> 2) Why the fact that the distribution does not "hide" the gcc code,
> as it is destined always to be at least a few versions behind the
> one most people have installed ?

I don't understand what you mean. GNAT often requires patches to the
base GCC, so a release has to be version-dependent.

> 3) Why the New York http site directs you to GNAT and GNAT promptly
> labels you "a student" ( obviously if you can't afford "Support" you
> must be a student) and sends you back to the New York site ?

Perhaps if you used ftp (as Darwin intended) you would have less
trouble! ftp@cs.nyu.edu

> These problems are relatively easy to fix for someone who knows the
> code .... but they're good problems for support contracts ..........
> 
> This proves that Ada programmers have more of a life than C
> programmers... as no-one it seems ( including myself ) can be
> bothered to wrestle this "GPL" source from GNAT LTD PLC ( or
> INC. for you american buddies) and produce a hassle free
> distribution that runs on the "GPL" platform GNU/LINUX.

But there is absolutely NO trouble getting the source! And it's ACT
(Ada Core Technologies). BTW, folks, if you want to set up a support
contract, don't bother mailing sales@act.com, they won't even bother
to reply, try sales@gnat.com instead :-)

On a personal note, I must be getting old, cos your choice of an
obscene hostname very nearly stopped me bothering to reply.