If Ada language support is enabled from the gcc 3.2.x compiler (see bug #11204), the ncurses 5.3 fails to compile. During configure the ncurses library checks the version number of the Ada compiler that traditionally was > 3.10 when ACT gnat compiler was used, in order to compile the Ada generics correctly. The gcc compiler reports version number 3.2.x that is smaller that 3.10 and fails to compile the Ada generics. Fix: following ncurses patch fixes the problem ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/5.3/ncurses-5.3-20021214.patch.gz and it should come with the next release of the ncurses.
In the meantime, it could be worthwhile to add "--without-ada" to the configure.
Is this patch specifically for the ada support or is it just a pull from cvs on 12/14/2002?
It is just pull from the ncurses CVS repository, so it is not Ada specific. That is why I am not suggesting that we should immediately patch our release ncurses ebuild, but rather have "--without-ada" until we have upgraded to the version that has the fixes in the patch.
I have updated ncurses-5.3-r1 to specify --without-ada during configure. As ada support is added to gcc I will then release an updated ncurses release 5.3.1? or a cvs pull at that time.