Split between gcc-x.y and gnat-x.y source packages (was: Debugging ADA-C-OS interface?)

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

Svante Signell wrote:
> A side question: Why is gnat released separately from the rest of the 
> Gnu
> Compiler Collection (GCC)?

Because GNAT is written in Ada and so requires an Ada compiler to 
build.

We have split the GCC into three source packages:

gcc-x.y requires only a C compiler to build and produces C, C++, 
Fortran, Go
and Objective-C compilers and libraries.  It also produces the binary 
package
gcc-x.y-source containing all the sources and patches in a tarball.

gnat-x.y build-depends on gcc-x.y-source and an Ada compiler.

gcj-x.y  build-depends on gcc-x.y-source and C++ and Java compilers.

The benefits of this split are many:
* bootstrapping a subset of languages is much faster than bootstrapping 
all
  languages and libraries (which can take a full week on slow 
architectures
  like mips or arm)

* the language maintainers don't have to wait for each other

* for new ports like the Hurd, the absence of a port of gnat-x.y does 
not
  block the porting of gcc-x.y :)

See also /usr/share/doc/gnat-4.6-base/README.maintainers.

--
Ludovic Brenta.
The group enhances the future-oriented implementation.