Re: [OSR] OCaml Standard Recommandation Process

[Sylvain Le Gall <sylvain@le-gall.net>]

On 29-01-2008, Edgar Friendly <thelema314@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jon Harrop wrote:
>> On Monday 28 January 2008 21:12:08 Gerd Stolpmann wrote:
>>> As it was mentioned, we cannot modify OCaml itself. We can ask here and
>>> there for changes, e.g. when core APIs could be improved so user add-ons
>>> have an easier life. But the OCaml language itself is only a matter of
>>> INRIA. It is still a cathedral, not a bazaar (I don't see any change
>>> here - except that the cathedral is now completely built). So any
>>> discussions about changing the language (try finally) or the stdlib are
>>> off-topic.
>> 
>> Can we clear up once and for all whether or not we can improve the stdlib?
>> 
>
> I wish I could answer your question authoritatively.  The best I can
> tell from the situation comes to this:
>
> 1) The community now has some permission to make a distribution out of
> the OCaml code created at INRIA.
>
> 2) This distribution should (Must?) not break backwards compatibility
> with the currently official, INRIA-blessed distro.
>
> The way I interpret these two gives me/us limited ability to improve the
> stdlib.  One question for the community involves both directions of
> migration.  #2 insists that INRIA-OCaml programs have the same semantics
> (including triggering the same warts of the language) under
> Community-OCaml.  i.e. taking a program compiled under INRIA-OCaml and
> compiling it under Community-OCaml should "just work".  The reverse --
> going from Community-OCaml to INRIA-OCaml -- isn't guaranteed to work in
> the same way, *but* the question comes: how much work must the user
> spend to translate from Community-OCaml to INRIA-OCaml.

[...]

I am not sure that i understand you. "Community distribution" should
just be "INRIA-Ocaml" + some others libraries. I am really not sure that
anyone talk about anything else. In other word, what have been talked
about is that ocaml INRIA distribution will stay as is, but people can
take it to put it into the center of a larger distribution.

If i read you well, you are thinking that we can change things inside
ocaml INRIA distribution. That is not true. And anyway, if such a thing
should happen, you will see a change in INRIA license, that will permit
you to do so. For now, this is not the case.

Sorry if i didn't catch your point.

Regards,
Sylvain Le Gall