CFD: status of Ada-related ports (including ports-mgmt/synth)

[Gerald Pfeifer]

[ I found this in my outgoing folder; ahem. ]

On Tue, 31 Dec 2019, Mark Linimon wrote:
> As of the following commit, lang/gcc6 is no longer supported:
> 
>   https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/Mk/bsd.gcc.mk?revision=521584

GCC 6 hasn't been supported upstream for over a year (end of life)
and is not covered by Mk/bsd.gcc.mk (aka USE_GCC) any longer. The
port is still in our tree for the time being, though I marked it for
expiration end of February - which gives an extra day this year. ;-)

> I would like to, if possible, eliminate gcc6, as it merely adds 
> build time on the package builders.

Is this a concern for all architectures, or mostly non-x86?  We
can always restrict ONLY_FOR_ARCHS further for such ports if those
focusing on those architectures are in favor.

[ Editorial note: In the meantime I made such a change for lang/gcc48. ]

> There is a variant of lang/gcc6 called lang/gcc6-aux, which is now only 
> required for the Ada-related ports, including ports-mgmt/synth.  fwiw, 
> that port is only available for aarch64/amd64/i386.
> 
> Is anyone willing to take on the work to upgrade our Ada support to
> some later compiler, so that we can delete lang/gcc6-aux as well?

lang/gcc6-aux/files carries a lot of patches (2500+ lines) that I
don't believe should be FreeBSD-local, but upstreamable/upstreamed.

Also there are some small local patches, some backports, in lang/gcc7 
and later especially, that really matter.  Any FreeBSD port around GCC 
probably would want to use those - which is not the case right now.

Gerald