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Re: Bug#677230: ITP: adhcp -- DHCP implementation in Ada



Hi Steve,

On 06/12/2012 04:59 PM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 04:33:00PM +0200, Adrian-Ken Rueegsegger wrote:
[snip]
>> If it is the latter: I believe having a simple and robust DHCP
>> implementation would be beneficial for the Debian project in general.
> 
> How does Debian gain by including yet another implementation of a
> common low-level system networking tool, written in a rarely-used (in
> Debian) language? In fact, a tool that (according to your own upstream
> web page at http://www.codelabs.ch/adhcp/) hasn't even been formally
> released yet.

The intention is to coordinate the first official public release with
the Debian package so there are no differences between the upstream
release code and the one packaged in Debian.

I would like to add that Ada support in Debian is excellent thanks to
the efforts of Ludovic Brenta and the growing number of Ada enthusiasts.
There is also an offical Debian mailing list (added to CC), where
Ada-related topics are discussed.

> Apart from not being written in your language of choice, is there
> anything wrong with the existing implementations that would cause a
> Debian user to want to switch?

The decision to write a DHCP implementation from scratch was based on
the fact that the existing projects were not deemed to be robust
enough. The ADHCP implementation is designed to be simple and only
support essential features while still conforming to the related DHCP
RFCs. A small text file documenting the RFC compliance of ADHCP is part
of the project documentation.

Ada is a general purpose programming language, which helps design and
implement safe and reliable code. That's why Ada was the language of
choice for this project.

The software was developed for an IT-Security company and has been in
use for more than a year.

I think that ADHCP is of interest for users which want a minimal DHCP
implementation with a focus on robustness and reliability.

Regards,
Adrian


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