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From: =?UTF-8?Q?g=c3=a9rard_Calliet?= <gerard.calliet@pia-sofer.fr>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Ada on OpenVMS, where to have a new beginning
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2020 19:14:17 +0200
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Hello,

I participated in a GNAT Ada build for Itanium OpenVMS 
(https://github.com/AdaLabs/gnat-vms) a few years ago. It is based on a 
GCC 4.7.3 .

I'm coming back to this work to maintain it and make it evolve, in a 
general approach of making Ada available in OpenVMS environments (VAX, 
Alpha, Itanium, and soon x86). (http://www.vmsadaall.org/index.php/en/)

For VAX and Alpha we have at least DEC Ada and Alsys Ada.  On Itanium I 
have to maintain GNAT Ada on GCC. For x86 I have to base on the Gnat Ada 
front end for LLVM, since VSI ports VMS to x86 
(https://vmssoftware.com/updates/state-of-the-port/) basing the 
compilers on LLVM.

I know that Adacore dropped commercial support for Gnat Ada on OpenVMS 
in 2015. It's not the commercial reasons that interest me.

In approaching this project again I would like to know as much as 
possible about how far Adacore's people or helpers have come in their 
developments for OpenVMS, what problems they have dealt with in the GCC 
upgrades they have resolved, only considered, and those they have seen 
as too difficult and blocking. The question arises as well for the 
upgrades (with for example around this time the transition of the GCC 
build to C++) as for the evolution of the debug management.

If the answers raise confidentiality issues, I don't want to put anyone 
in trouble, but I'm looking for indications on who to negotiate with.

It's not impossible that Adacore's people were among the last to develop 
GCC for OpenVMS Itanium. They may also be able to inform me about the 
build of the C and C++ part for GCC OpenVMS. I think indeed to associate 
to my efforts for Ada the exploration of the availability of a C++ GCC 
for Itanium OpenVMS.

This resumption of project is quite at its beginning. My goal is to open 
as much as possible the work and its results to a collaborative work, in 
Open Source standards. One of my first tasks will be to update the 
current repository to allow opened development.

Gérard Calliet