Return-Path: paula Return-Path: Received: by cygnus.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA05374; Mon, 9 Mar 92 19:17:42 PST Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 19:17:42 PST From: paula (Paula Vancini) Message-Id: <9203100317.AA05374@cygnus.com> To: engnews-distrib Subject: Inside Cygnus Engineering -- March 1992 Reply-To: engnews@cygnus.com Organization: Cygnus Support, Palo Alto CA; Phone +1 415 322 3811 INSIDE CYGNUS ENGINEERING March 1992 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Inside Cygnus Engineering (ICE) is published monthly for customers of Cygnus Support. Our objective is to provide a relevant but informal summary of news and ongoing activities. Please send all comments, suggestions, and subscription requests to engnews@cygnus.com. PRODUCTS AND RELEASES --------------------- 1. gcc 2.0 The Free Software Foundation (FSF) officially announced the long awaited release 2.0 of gcc about two weeks ago. There are no big surprises in functionality or platform for our customers, as Cygnus has been distributing the 1.9x releases for a long time. So far, the net response has been overwhelmingly positive, and the first bug fix release, 2.1, is expected in the next few weeks. Several of you have asked how the FSF release differs from what we at Cygnus provide. The answer is: as little as possible. We devote significant effort to maintaining a common software base with the FSF. Wherever possible, we share our improvements with them and incorporate their improvements back into our sources as quickly as we can vet them. We do have a number of extra modules and files (about 1.5 megabytes' worth) that provide additional functionality and/or platforms. Some of this is work in progress that will be remerged with the FSF when completed. Others are customer-proprietary additions that will stay within Cygnus until the customer is ready to release it to the world. 2. libg++ 2.0 As the official FSF maintainers of the libg++ library, we are expecting to release a new version, libg++ 2.0, in the next few weeks. It includes the new IOStreams library mentioned in last month's Inside Cygnus Engineering. Other enhancements include rework of the make and configuration files to allow easier building of the entire GNU toolchain, and cleanup in support of the gcc 2.0 release. Libg++ 2.0 is under the Library General Public License (LGPL), unlike libg++ 1.xx which is under the General Public License (GPL). LGPL binaries can be linked into a user's application without causing the user program to become copylefted. When you distribute an application with LGPL libraries, you must make the source of those libraries available, and must provide relocatable binaries of the application so that it can be relinked. If the LGPL library is built as a shared library, programs that dynamically link to the shared library are likely to fulfill the "relinkable binary" part of the conditions. 3. Solaris 2.0 gcc update We announced at Usenix and to the net that we are porting the GNU C compiler and tools to Sun Microsystems's Solaris 2.0 operating system on SPARC workstations. The response has been enthusiastic. We have therefore decided to commit to making this toolset available at the time of the Solaris 2.0 FCS. The offer is still not fully subscribed, so you still have an opportunity to purchase a year's support for the Solaris compiler at the unprecedented price of $2000 per five users. Anyone who is interested should send email to solaris-compiler@cygnus.com. 4. Send_pr A number of customers have already received a pilot version of the send_pr script used to automate and improve the support process at Cygnus. In order to better track problems, solutions, and our responsiveness, we have decided to add a number of enhancements to both the database and the associated programs. We currently expect to have a release of the updated version of send_pr for general distribution in late March. NEW AND ONGOING DEVELOPMENTS ---------------------------- We are implementing some of these only for certain platforms, so for the moment, they are not all tested or available for generic use. 1. DOS toolchain In the last month, we have made great progress in terms of making a DOS hosting of the GNU toolchain available. Using a 386 extender, the toolchain includes gcc, g++, gas, gld, binutils, and a serial line only gdb. Although the original work is being done for Hitachi of America as a cross toolchain for the H8/300 embedded microprocessor, many GNU users and potential GNU users have expressed strong interest in DOS hosting. 2. "Progressive" release We have been doing a lot of thinking here at Cygnus about how best to bring the value of GNU software to the commercial community at large. One way is to provide productized (as compared with custom) releases of GNU software on a regular and frequent basis (about three month intervals). These releases will obviously have not seen the level of field use as the vintage releases. However, they ensure that most of the interesting new features mentioned in ICE will be made available in a relatively short amount of time. We plan to start with the most common native and cross platforms, and gradually expand our matrix of hosts and targets over the coming year. More details on this will be published in next month's issue of ICE. 3. Changes in installation directories In support of the progressive release and of staying merged with the FSF sources, we have made some modifications to our distribution configuration, as follows. a. Our normal distribution has a top level name "xxx-date". Host dependent files are placed in the subdirectory ./H-hosttype. Host independent files used to be in the ./H-independent subdirectory. They are now put directly in ./xxx-date. b. All program names except gcc, g++, and gdb now default to the name of their Unix counterparts; e.g., gas is now as, and gld ld. You now have the option of prefixing these names by rebuilding from source. Details are in the config man page that comes with the distribution. c. The names used for programs and files configured for cross development have not been very consistent up to now. We have adopted the form "target-program" where the target architecture is used as a prefix. For example, the assembler that generates Motorola 68k target code is called m68k-as. Again, more details are in the config man page. SOFTWARE STATUS REPORT ---------------------- In addition to new developments, a significant part of our engineering effort is devoted to answering questions and fixing problems in GNU software. Open problem reports as of March 9: 197 New reports since February 3: 159 Reports closed since February 3: 110 OTHER ITEMS ----------- Kerberos at Connectathon Our Kerberos demo at Connectathon last week was a great success, and was written up in the conference highlights. We demonstrated interoperability with TGV and FTP Software as planned, and with kerberized Sun Solaris applications (unplanned). --------------------------------------------------------------------- Cygnus Support 814 University Avenue One Kendall Square Palo Alto, CA 94301 Cambridge, MA 02139 +1 415 322 3811 voice +1 617 494 1040 voice +1 415 322 3270 fax +1 617 494 1325 fax