From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 X-Received: by 2002:ac8:13c9:: with SMTP id i9mr11687578qtj.284.1595626937453; Fri, 24 Jul 2020 14:42:17 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:ac8:4419:: with SMTP id j25mr12114205qtn.0.1595626937063; Fri, 24 Jul 2020 14:42:17 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.gegeweb.eu!gegeweb.org!usenet-fr.net!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!209.85.160.216.MISMATCH!news-out.google.com!nntp.google.com!postnews.google.com!google-groups.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 14:42:16 -0700 (PDT) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=71.94.145.179; posting-account=84ieUgoAAAAnUS2e_T521zfeUcALYrrJ NNTP-Posting-Host: 71.94.145.179 User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <52baf1e5-f0a5-42be-acc7-75fb17fb6f4co@googlegroups.com> Subject: AdaCore's survey regarding the future of GNAT Community Edition From: Wesley Pan Injection-Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 21:42:17 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:59512 List-Id: I just discovered this via Ada Planet... Link to the Google Docs survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe= t9x3UNUFmfWt5v-8Jb7dW8BgKiJxyEMJ_TFm0G2UJKx5OmQ/viewform =20 Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/ada/comments/hwgbwa/survey_on_t= he_future_of_gnat_community/ Survey summary reproduced below... GNAT Ecosystem Community Survey Hello Ada supporters, We are writing this message here to present, discuss and get feedback on a = plan that we at AdaCore want to put in place. Over the next couple of years= , we want to experiment with an evolution of the GNAT ecosystem and would = like your help. So far, there are three grand families of GNAT releases: - GNAT Pro: An AdaCore release with professional support and high level qu= ality assurance. Available on many different targets (PowerPC, Leon, vxWork= s, etc.). - GNAT Community: An AdaCore release with a lower level of quality assuran= ce, less targets, and a pure GPL license for the run-time. - GNAT FSF: community built compiler from the FSF source tree. Available f= rom Linux distributions or Msys2 on Windows, for instance. Moving forward, we are looking to simplify the situation and remove GNAT Co= mmunity from the picture. The plan is to reach a point where AdaCore would not release GNAT Community= compilers and instead instruct non-professional users to use GNAT FSF buil= ds. We would still keep making GNAT Studio and SPARK releases, and librarie= s such as AWS and xmlada will be available in the Alire package manager (ht= tp://alire.ada.dev). With this plan we also want to invest some more time t= o help the maintainers of GNAT packages in Linux, BSD, or Windows (msys2) d= istributions, for instance, and potentially contribute when necessary. Our = intention is to contribute to various communities building GNAT packages so= that what can be done today with GNAT Community will be doable tomorrow fr= om these community-led builds. Why are we working on this plan? We have noticed that GNAT Community's pure GPL license on the run-time is s= een as a barrier to new Ada users. More specifically, understanding the con= sequences of the GPL licence is complex. The result is that newcomers will = often be introduced to Ada/SPARK by a legal licence discussion rather than = looking at the value of the technology. This will, understandably, scare pe= ople off.=20 On top of this, we are witnessing a widespread misunderstanding around the = openness of the Ada language and the GNAT compiler, some people seem to thi= nk that Ada and GNAT are proprietary technologies. We see this phenomenon a= s detrimental to the growth of the Ada community. Of course this misunderst= anding will not fade in a couple days, but we think that removing GNAT Comm= unity will make the situation clearer and will allow us to better communica= te on the situation of the Ada compiler ecosystem. Besides general comments and discussion around this plan, we would apprecia= te your feedback in this survey form. Please help us spread the word. The m= ore feedback we get, the more we will be able to move in the right directio= n.