patches in Debian's repository

[Qian Yun]

I'm trying to build FriCAS with GCL, and I come across
Debian's repository, which FriCAS is built by GCL.

There are patches for FriCAS to build with GCL, I'm still
trying them.

But there are also other patches, I think we should
integrate them, at least the typo fixes ones.

See https://sources.debian.org/src/fricas/1.3.7-5/debian/patches/

- Qian

[Waldek Hebisch]

I will include two spelling fixes but most patches does not look
appriopriate for FriCAS.

To say the truth, I am not sure what to do with GCL support.
Namely using gcl-2.6.12 I get working FriCAS, which however
on testsuite exhibits two bugs not appearing with other Lisps.
Worse, they are Heisenbugs, trying to activate GCL debugging
features hides them.

I was not able to get really working version of FriCAS with
later GCL versions. Somewhat releated is problem that
there were no GCL release in last several years (2.6.12
while old is _newest_ release). There is Version_2_6_13pre
branch in gcl repo, but it moving target, accumulating
incompatibilities with 2.6.12 and probably with its
earlier incarnations. Camm said he wants "shortly"
to cerate new release but time goes on. Without
stable designation for working versions it is hard to
say that given "version" works (I would hate to say
"fetch this specific git hash" and have no idea which
one could be "good").

Note that in INSTALL I wrote:

- FriCAS builds also using GCL, at least build using released version
2.6.12 works. Build using newer GCL versions from git repository
fails.

Few years ago using 2_6_13pre from that time I patched FriCAS
enough to build, but it was unusable and buggy. I tried
with "traditional" GCL, it has broken undocumented functionality
used by FriCAS. It is possible that ANSI support in GCL
improved enough to get working version based on ANSI
features. I looked at Debian patches and I presume they
allows FriCAS to build. It is not clear to me if they
allow FriCAS to work (say pass testsuite). Anyway,
before I have reasonable confidence that we get
something working I hesitant to apply patches that
break older GCL versions (and due to incompatibilites
some patches break older versions).

--
Waldek Hebisch