Return-Path: jeffrey Return-Path: Received: by cygnus.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02583; Mon, 25 Jan 93 18:29:33 PST Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 18:29:33 PST From: jeffrey (Jeffrey Osier) Message-Id: <9301260229.AA02583@cygnus.com> To: engnews-distrib Subject: Inside Cygnus Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vol 2 No 1 INSIDE CYGNUS ENGINEERING January 1993 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. FROM THE EDITOR --------------- Welcome to "Volume 2" of Inside Cygnus Engineering. It doesn't seem so long ago that we were putting together the first issue one late night in an apartment in Palo Alto, CA. Cygnus has certainly grown and changed in the last 12 months. And then again, we haven't changed so much. In working with our customers, learning from you as we pioneer commercial support for free software, we have become more committed than ever to making us both successful. ICE is a channel of communications. We publish it solely for you and we want it to be responsive to your needs. Please continue to help guide its evolution with your suggestions. PRODUCTS AND RELEASES --------------------- 1. Solaris Highlight With the release of Solaris 2.1 from Sun Microsystems, we are seeing a high level of interest in our GNU Development Toolkit for Solaris. This coincides with the availability of our latest progressive release (P4) which has been tested with 2.1. We are now in the process of updating, at no charge, our installed base with the latest release. We offer C++ support on Solaris 2.x for the first time with this release. Existing Solaris customers can add C++ to their current Cygnus support contract for an additional $1,000. 2. DejaGnu to Net We are ironing out the last copyright assignment details prior to releasing DejaGnu, our testing framework, as an official Free Software Foundation release. Final arrival date is expected to be at the end of January. DejaGnu provides a single, flexible front end to facilitate writing and running tests on multiple native and cross platforms. It is written in "expect", which in turn uses Tcl (Tool command language) from the University of California at Berkeley. The framework consists of two parts: the testing framework itself, and the test suites. The tests are usually also written in expect. The current release consists of two tar files. The first is a release of expect/Tcl. This version differs slightly from the current net version in terms of having added configuration and logging, and supporting the SCO, SVR4, and Solaris platforms. The second file includes all the test cases that have been developed so far. This includes tests for GDB, GCC, NM, and Tcl. There are a few G++ tests. We expect be add several hundred more G++ tests in the next release. In the future, the tests will be packaged within the source directory of the program to be tested, and the DejaGnu release will only consist of the testing framework. If you are interested in obtaining an early copy, you can FTP it from cygnus.com, from ~ftp/pub. The Tcl and expect file is called "expect-3.24.0.tar.Z", and the DejaGnu file is called "DejaGnu-0.9.tar.Z". NEW AND ONGOING DEVELOPMENTS ---------------------------- 1. What's up in 1993? We expect 1993 to be another exciting year with new ports and tools rolling out on a regular basis. Already, we are busy at work on the progressive release for the first quarter (Q1) targeted for the end of March. This will include the g++ enhancements contained in the Reno 1.0 release that went out to a number of customers late last year, and significant gdb performance improvements. We are also investigating a progressive distribution on CD-ROM. Support for HP Precision Architecture (HPPA, or HP9000/700 computers) has been integrated into gdb and will be part of the next Net release. We will provide native support for the full HPPA toolchain later in the year if there is enough customer interest. We have also started work on the assembler and linker for the MIPS processor, and expect to include it in a progressive release later in the year. We are looking into ports to other platforms, particularly 64-bit processors as these increase in popularity. As for new offerings, we are beginning to receiving steady inquiries about our Cygnus Network Security (Kerberos) product, so we expect to be enhancing this and porting it to more platforms in 1993. The impending net release of DejaGnu is creating a lot of interest, as is the possibility of distributing PRMS, our problem report tracking system. We are currently working on generalizing the PRMS system beyond day-to-day Cygnus use. We expect to offer support for DejaGnu (and optionally PRMS) later this year. A lot of you have expressed interest in a graphical user interface, mainly for gdb, but also in terms of, for example, a class browser for g++. We are starting with an investigation into a gdb GUI. On the computer hardware end of gdb, our development of a Z8000 simulator, followed by a simulator for the Hitachi H8/300 has been well received, and we expect to be doing more in this area also. This is the view just three weeks into 1993. We know that many exciting opportunities will come up over the remaining 49 weeks, so stay tuned! SUPPORT ACTIVITIES ------------------- In addition to new developments, a significant part of our engineering resources is devoted to answering questions, fixing problems in the GNU software, and providing a range of support services to our customers. 1. Software maintenance status The following table shows the maintenance statistics for the last five weeks. We continue to need your help: please let us know when a problem has been fixed so that we can move it from a "feedback" state to a "closed" state. # # # # # # Date Open Analzd Fdback Closed Suspnd Total --------------------------------------------------------- 12/21/92 354 68 392 911 109 1834 01/18/93 360 96 418 953 105 1932 --------------------------------------------------------- Change +6 +28 +26 +42 -4 +98 2. Customer Database In the update offer we sent out to our "Core" and "Single" customers in December, we asked you to review the contact, platform, and media preference information that we have about you. Keeping our customer database up to date helps us provide you with better service. Please help us make sure we have the right information and alert us to changes even if you do not want to get an update at this time. OTHER ITEMS ----------- 1. New Group Pricing In 1992, we offered user-based ("Single") and multi-platform, group based ("Core") support to our progressive customers. Inputs from customers and prospects, and review of our customer database show that many customers have a large group of users but use only one platform. We have therefore restructured the price of "Core" support to reflect that need for 1993. We are also renaming "Core" support to "Group" support. The new price structure is: First platform, C only $25,000 per year First platform, C and C++ $35,000 per year Second platform $15,000 per year Additional platforms $10,000 per year A platform is any host-target combination in our progressive release matrix. 2. Cygnus Support 1993 FSF Matching Fund To encourage cash donations to the Free Software Foundation, Cygnus Support has established a 1993 FSF Matching Fund for all employees, customers, and employees of customers. Donations made by Cygnus employees will be matched equally up to a maximum of $1000 per employee. Cygnus will also match donations from customers and their employees at 50% to a maximum of $1000 per customer. The FSF Matching Fund will be capped annually on the basis of business conditions, to be determined by Cygnus Support. The cap for 1993 is $10,000. Donations payable to the Free Software Foundation should be sent to Cygnus Support, where they will be matched and forwarded to the FSF each quarter. The FSF will provide the contributor with a receipt to recognize the contribution (which is tax-deductible). Donations sent to the FSF directly will not be matched, except by prior arrangement with Cygnus Support. 3. Customer Forum We value your inputs, and would like to ask for your response to the following questions (to engnews@cygnus.com). We will publish summaries of answers of general interest in the following issue. 1. Which workstation would you like us to support next? Which microprocessor architecture for embedded development? Why? 2. Would you like to see the GNU tools ported to DSP (digital signal processing) chips? If so, which one(s)? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Cygnus Support 1937 Landings Drive One Kendall Square Mountain View, CA 94043 Cambridge, MA 02139 +1 415 903 1400 voice +1 617 494 1040 voice +1 415 903 0122 fax +1 617 494 1325 fax ---------------------------------------------------------------------