Re: -std's (was Re: v3 link failures analyzed)

[dewar at gnat dot com]

<<The standards bodies are slow to change, but they are learning.
You can now buy electronic copies of the C and C++ standards
for less than $20 US.
>>

The standards bodies can be dealt with if you persevere. Electronic copies
of the Ada standard are and always have been freely available under a 
free distribution license that allows clearly marked modifications. Printed
copies can be prepared by anyone without any license fees. 

This is something that Ada simply insisted on -- during the standardization
process, we simply made it a requirement, and made it clear that we would
simply withdraw from the ISO standardization process if they did not agree.

There actually is a kind of silly compromise involved. The official ISO
standard has no paragraph numbers, which makes it pretty much useless in
any case. The widely distributed version is exactly character for character
the same as the official ISO standard, except that it has paragraph numbers.

Of course the copyright on the free version would allow anyone to remove
the paragraph numbers if they felt like it, but a consequence is that no one
feels like trying to physically copy the official ISO version in any case.