Re: Next version of ASIS in Debian

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Stephen Leake wrote:
> Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:
>> The ASIS source distribution from AdaCore contains a copy of part of
GNAT
>> which is slightly out of sync with both the GNAT GPL (same edition) and
>> FSF GCC sources.  In particular, since the FSF does not distribute
ASIS, 
> 
> Why not? Is that because AdaCore doesn't want to push the changes, or
> did FSF decide not to take the code?

I have no idea.  I think it would require a significant effort on
AdaCore's part.  Even publishing their Subversion repository, like they do
for GtkAda and everything else, seems difficult.

> ASIS is (as we know) very useful.
> 
>> In the future, I would like gprbuild to also use these libraries
instead
>> of its own, out-of-sync copies :/
> 
> Is there any way we can lobby/pressure AdaCore to copy the shared
> library solution? I'm a paying customer, but I suspect it would take
> several, and they would just say "use what we provide", which does work.

That would be nice.  I think they're moving in that direction though, as
in recent versions of GNAT Pro (at work) I noticed directories named
".../lib/gnat_util/{static,relocatable}" and ".../include/gnat_util",
containing what looks like libgnatvsn and libgnatprj combined.  But I don't
think the GNAT tools, ASIS or GPS actually link to this library yet. Maybe
all they need is just one little nudge :)

(Note: it is important to separate libgnatvsn and libgnatprj for licensing
reasons.  In the FSF tree, libgnatvsn is pure GPL; libgnatprj is GPL with
runtime exception).

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.