Re: Ada packages

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

Hi Goswin,

I appreciate the work you've done so far, and your interest in Ada
packages.  It is really rewarding to see someone like you send
detailed mails like this.

The reason why gnat is the default compiler, and not GCC 3.3, is
explained on ACT's web site[1].  Quoted: "The current distribution of
the public version of GNAT is 3.15p. This version is based on GCC
2.8.1. It should not be confused with the versions of GNAT available
with GCC 3.2 and 3.3, which are alpha versions of the integration of
GNAT with recent versions of the GCC code generator, and do not
correspond to any specific GNAT release. GCC 3.4 contains an improved
integration of GNAT which is suitable for academic and free software
usage and can be considered as an alternative to GNAT 3.15p.".

I have taken this and wrote a draft Ada Policy for Debian[2].  It
explains how I packaged most of the things and why they are currently
supported only on i386, powerpc and sparc.  The problem you found in
adabrowse is one of the known problems with GCC 3.3.  GCC 3.4 has
fewer bugs, but still has a major regression, namely, no tasking on
powerpc.  While most of the other packages build, I think they would
require at least some run-time testing before being declared good
enough for Debian.

However, I am more than willing to integrate your patches so that Ada
packages can be supported on more architectures, if you agree to help
maintain them (I am looking for a co-maintainer for additional
packages and architectures, BTW).  I think that having GCC 3.3 as an
alternative where GNAT 3.15p is not supported is reasonable.  It is
even better if you are prepared to switch to GCC 3.4 when it reaches
unstable (it is currently in experimental due to ABI changes, as you
certainly know).

[1] http://libre.act-europe.fr/gnat
[2] http://users.skynet.be/ludovic.brenta/debian-ada-policy.html

PS. I have copied Matthias Klose, my ever so trusting sponsor.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.