Return-Path: smlieu Return-Path: Received: by cygnus.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA19331; Tue, 22 Jun 93 19:31:46 PDT Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 19:31:46 PDT From: smlieu (Sun Ming Lieu) Message-Id: <9306230231.AA19331@cygnus.com> To: engnews-distrib Subject: Inside Cygnus Engineering - June 1993 Reply-To: smlieu@cygnus.com Organization: Cygnus Support, Mountain View CA; Phone +1 415 903 1400 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vol 2 No 6 INSIDE CYGNUS ENGINEERING June 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. PRODUCTS AND RELEASES --------------------- 1. Q2 Progressive The Q2 progressive update request forms were sent out via first class mail at the beginning of June. These were addressed to the main technical contact for your support contract. While we try to keep our customer database up to date, we occasionally have the wrong name or mailing address. If you have not yet received an update form, please contact us at contracts@cygnus.com. We have experienced occasional problems with readability of Exabyte tapes at customer sites in our last two progressive releases. If you currently receive Exabyte tapes and can use QIC-24 instead, we would appreciate your help in switching over to QIC-24 until we have corrected the problem. 2. Emacs release A new Cygnus release of Emacs, based on Emacs 18.59, will be available concurrent with Q2 progressive at the end of June. This release is supported on the following platforms: Host OS -------------------------------- Sun3 SunOS 4.1.1 Sun4 SunOS 4.1.1 Sun4 Solaris 2.x DECStation Ultrix 4.2 RS6000 AIX 3.2 SGI-Iris Irix 4.0.1 SCO Unix 3.2v4 We make Emacs available by special arrangement to our group and leveraged support customers. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has published Emacs version 19, and we are helping to test and stabilize it. We will make this version available when it is stable enough. 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. New, non-LGPL Iostreams Library The GNU Library General Public Licence (LGPL) was designed for software libraries, especially when used in a shared library environment. Its requirements make it difficult or impossible for developers of embedded systems to use LGPL libraries. Cygnus provides an ANSI C library that is freely redistributable and not under LGPL for our cross development customers. Libg++, however, has been historically been placed under the LGPL. Many of our embedded C++ customers have asked us for a non-LGPL version of libg++, specifically the iostreams classes. (Iostreams classes are considered part of the language, and so are not usually included in other publicly available C++ class libraries and applications.) We have recently begun a substantial re-write to bring our implementation of the iostreams classes closer to the ANSI Working Paper. We have also reimplemented the lower level iostreams code in C (instead of C++) to provide better integration between it and the C stdio library. As part of this effort, we have now also reached an agreement with the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to separate out the iostreams classes from the rest of libg++. Iostreams will be placed under the same licence as the libgcc utility library. The libgcc licence is the standard GNU (non-library) General Public Licence (GPL), but with the following critical addition: As a special exception, if you link this library with files compiled with GCC to produce an executable, this does not cause the resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License. This means that Cygnus will be able offer a complete C++ package for use by embedded systems developers without the LGPL requirements. The actual engineering work of splitting iostreams from libg++ has begun. Some of the design details still need to be worked out, but we expect to include it in a new libg++ release in the late summer, and to make it part of the Q3 progressive release at the end of September. 2. Q3 Progressive As Q2 moves towards final production, activities for the Q3 progressive release are starting to ramp up. We expect to support the following matrix of host-target platforms for Q3. u n r m i s h h a x s s s d 6 i p p g w o u u s 0 r s 3 7 d n a l n n t 0 i c 0 0 o u r 2 3 4 n 0 s o 0 0 s m e TARGET\HOST | ---------------+-------------------------------------- Native | N N N N N N N N N 68k a.out | X X X X X X X 68k coff | X X X O 68k SPECTRA | X X X X X X X 68k VxWorks | X X X X i960 Nindy | X X X i960 VxWorks | X X X X i[34]86 a.out | X X O O 29k UDI | X X X SPARC VxWorks | X X SPARC a.out | X X SPARClite a.out| X X O MIPS R3k ecoff | O X O O H8/300 coff | X O Z8000 coff | X Hitachi SH coff| X O 88k coff | O Key: N - supported native (no runtime libraries except libg++ for native platforms) X - supported cross O - contact Cygnus for availability 3. Debugging Remote Unix-style Process in GDB A new feature in GDB is the GDBserver, a remote server for Unix-like systems. GDBserver can be used to control the execution of a program on a target host from a GDB on a different host. GDB and GDBserver communicate using the standard remote serial protocol (and implemented in remote.c, and various *-stub.c files). They can communicate via either a serial line or a TCP connection. Currently, the only target system supported by GDBserver is the Lynx Real Time OS running on an i386 platform. This functionality will be made available in the next GDB net release (GDB 4.10, scheduled for mid-August) and the Q3 progressive at the end of September. We expect to add support for GDBserver on other target systems in the future. 4. Development in Progress There is plenty of other exciting new development work in progress this summer at Cygnus. The following is a partial list of activities that will eventually become part of our progressive releases: - full HPPA native toolchain - i[34]86 Netware target support - Lynx Real Time OS support - multithread support in GDB - enhanced C++ support for embedded systems using stabs-in-coff - generic stabs-in-elf support for non-SPARC architectures SUPPORT ACTIVITIES ------------------- In addition to new development, 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 you agree that 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 ------------------------------------------------------------ 05/17/93 430 166 659 1,229 123 2,607 06/21/93 412 187 719 1,330 129 2,777 ------------------------------------------------------------ Change -18 +21 +60 +101 +6 +170 OTHER ITEMS ----------- 1. PRMS update Release 3.0 of PRMS, our bug tracking software, was introduced on the Net as "gnats" about 3 months ago. It has received a warm welcome, and is in use at many sites for bug tracking, help desks, call tracking, and a variety of related applications. We have heard from over 80 locations, including a dozen educational (.edu) sites in US, more than 15 European installations, and at least 3 different Pacific Rim countries. 2. Customer Forum We value your suggestions, and would like your response to the following questions (to engnews@cygnus.com). We will publish summaries of answers of general interest in a following issue. 1. How are we doing? Are you satisfied with what Cygnus is providing you? (Please feel free to elaborate.) 2. What else can we do or do better? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------