Open-Source Ada: From Gateware to Application | Hacker News Reader

Open-Source Ada: From Gateware to Application

blog.adacore.com

63 pointsBogdanp11 comments

This is specifically for hardware. Looks really cool!

I’ve always been confused about Ada the language and its licensing though. I know this project is open source but is the language as well? It’s unclear to me, though I may be missing information

you have GNAT https://www.getadanow.com/ which is part of GNU compilers

some discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27313294

What do you mean with "is the language open source"? The Ada specification is public [0] but not open source -- but the C and C++ specifications are not open source either, in the normal sense of the term. And like with C and C++, there are both open source and proprietary compilers for Ada, see e.g. [1]

What's mostly not open source (FAFAIK) is SPARK, the formal verification framework for Ada.

[0] https://www.adaic.org/ada-resources/standards/ada22/

[1] https://github.com/ohenley/awesome-ada#compilers

SPARK tools are also open source. The main tool `gnatprove` is based on GCC as well. https://github.com/AdaCore/spark2014

It's not a community project, AFAICT. Few people know how to build it from source.

That links gives me a 404. Does it require membership of some organization before you're allowed to view it?

edit: did you mean https://github.com/AdaCore/spark2014 ?

Sorry, yes 2014. Fixed it.

The C++ (draft) standards are open source:

https://github.com/cplusplus/draft

Last time I looked I could not find an equivalent repository for the C standards.

There isn't one. They publish completed drafts on the working group website:

https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/wg14_document_lo...

.pdf unfortunately. The C++ sources that I linked to are machine readable .tex.

If you are looking for an open-source compiler, many distros (e.g. Archlinux, Debian and derivatives) bootstrap a full GCC (GNU compiler collection). Sometimes you have to install a particular packet, e.g. `gnat` or `gcc-ada`. There's also a language-specific packet tool `alire` that seems to aim to be somewhat like cargo. It can also install toolchains, IIRC.

Just as open as COBOL, Fortran, C and C++.

As ISO standards driven language with multiple implementations, commercial and open source ones.

The open source one is part of GCC.

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