Ada mainline

[Manfred Hollstein]

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, 01:23:16 +0200, Kaveh R. Ghazi wrote:
>  > From: Robert Dewar
>  >  > Diego Novillo wrote:
>  >  > 
>  >  > 
>  >  > Have you read and understood http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html?  If
>  >  > that doesn't answer your questions, we should probably add the missing
>  >  > bits.
>  > 
>  > Yes, of course I have read this, but the entire premise here is of an
>  > extended community of developers submitting patches to a small group
>  > of people to be reviewed.
> 
> As I mentioned here http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2004-09/msg00468.html
> there are other reasons for following our rules besides the explicit
> approve/reject scenario by an existing guru.
> 
> Reasons include:
> 
> 1.  You often get helpful suggestions.
> 2.  You help create/educate the next generation of developers.
> 3.  There is a public audit trail and discussion for posterity.
> 
> You might not believe #1 can happen for Ada.  That's true mostly
> because your cloistered developement model means #2 and #3 can't
> happen today.  So only the handful of current ACT employees can ever
> touch GNAT.  If that's your goal, then you've been wildly successful.
> But that model IMHO is ultimately self-defeating for both GNAT and
> ACT.

This discussion actually reminds me _a lot_ of the way gcc development
worked _before egcs started_... ;-) We all know who controlled the
gcc2 development, and why egcs was the only solution to get around it.

If AdaCore does not appreciate that people from the community are
actually willing to work on the same beast by providing patches, I'm
afraid (a) GNAT remains in such a shaky shape all the time, or (b) it
will most likely be dropped again from the FSF tree. If we don't get
a mutual agreement on how patches have to be submitted, I'd prefer to
see (b) happen, although I have a long history with Ada... sigh.

Cheers.

l8er
manfred