Replied: Tue, 23 Nov 93 02:53:12 -0800 Replied: "smlieu (Sun Ming Lieu) " Return-Path: smlieu Return-Path: Received: by cygnus.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA01269; Mon, 22 Nov 93 20:09:59 PST Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 20:09:59 PST From: smlieu (Sun Ming Lieu) Message-Id: <9311230409.AA01269@cygnus.com> To: engnews-distrib Subject: Inside Cygnus Engineering - Vol 2 #11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vol 2 No 11 INSIDE CYGNUS ENGINEERING November 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. TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- . Q3 Update . Revision to Quarterly Update Process . Gas 2.2 Release . DejaGnu 1.1.1 Release . CVS Update . GDB GUI Update . Software Maintenance Status . Holiday Calendar . FTP Sites . Customer Forum (Printed Documentation and ICE) . Customer Forum Responses (Market Communications) PRODUCTS AND RELEASES --------------------- 1. Q3 Update While some Q3 tapes have shipped in the last few weeks, we still have not received hardcopy documentation from our printers. We are therefore planning to ship all tapes with only online documentation this week. This will be followed by hardcopy documentation when available. We are reviewing our documentation production strategy in an effort to improve the situation for the next release (see Customer Forum section). Once again, we apologize for the delay and inconvenience. 2. Revision to Quarterly Update Process A majority of our customers is interested in an email-based version of the quarterly release update-request form. As a result, we will be putting a dual email and hardcopy process in place with the 93Q4 release. (1) On or about December 1, we will be sending out the update-request form via email to all the primary technical contacts for whom we have an email address. This form will include the usual customer ID, contract expiration date, and supported platforms type of information, and ask that you let us know for which platforms you would like an update. In addition, we will ask you to let us know whether you would like to be updated or not as a default, and whether you would like to have update requests via email. (2) About a week thereafter, we will send out the same mailing again to _all_ primary technical contacts via US Mail. If you have already responded to part (1), this mailing will also confirm the information that you provided to us. (3) In future updates, we will notify you via the medium of your choice. If we do not hear from you, then we will take the default update action that you have requested. While it may be easier just to send releases to everyone every time, we would like to take a conservation-minded approach to distribution, and would like to ask for your help in setting this up. Of course, this is also just the basic distribution process. Please contact us through your Cygnus technical contact, or help@cygnus.com, or contracts@cygnus.com if we can help in any way. 3. Gas 2.2 Release We made a new release of Gas to the Net about 2 weeks ago. This release includes a lot of the development work that we have been doing in 1993. - ELF support has made much forward progress. Support for i386 and SPARC solaris is now in place. Elf support for the HPPA architecture from the University of Utah has alo been integrated in. - DBX-style debugging information ("stabs") is now supported for coff formats. Stabs-in-coff allows improved debugging of g++ programs, and require gdb 4.11 or later. - MIPS R4000 support, generating ecoff and elf code, although the latter will still require some work. The release is available in gzip format in the file "gas-2.2.tar.gz" from the usual GNU archive sites (see section on FTP sites below). 4. DejaGnu 1.1.1 Release We have also made a new release of the DejaGnu testing framework to the Net. Major new changes since the last release include the following: - Conformace to the POSIX 1003.3 standard for testing frameworks. - Improvements in the error handling to catch all Tcl errors. - Redesign of the configuration system to use a single config file. (All tool name and makefile definitions are now fully user accessible and configurable.) - Separate releases of DejaGnu and the testsuites for various GNU programs. This release contains Tcl version 6.7 and Expect version 4.7.6.1. We will be converting to Tcl 7.2 and Expect 5.1 for the next release. Tk 3.5, ExpectTk, and ExpectTerm are also candidates for the next release. The DejaGnu release is in gzip format in the file "dejagnu-1.1.1.tar.gz". It can be obtained from the usual GNU archive sites (see section on FTP sites below). To report bugs in DejaGnu, please send mail to bug-dejagnu@prep.ai.mit.edu. NEW AND ONGOING DEVELOPMENTS ---------------------------- 1. CVS Update CVS is the source control system that we have used at Cygnus for several years. It is a front end program to RCS and extends the concepts of source control to directories and "trees" of source files. It is also consistently the number one additional product for which you would like to see us provide support. We are currently coordinating with the authors and maintainers of RCS and CVS to put together a new release of CVS. In addition to the usual bug fixes, we would also like to put in our support code for branches and remote access that we have been using internally. Since this effort involves several parties that do not always have CVS as their first priority, release plans are not yet well defined. We would ideally like to have a beta-quality package that can be put on the Net in 2-3 months. If you are interested in getting this release and possibly CVS support from Cygnus in 1994, please contact us at engnews@cygnus.com. 2. GDB GUI Update We have now completed the first pass restructuring of gdb required for making a gdb-based debugging server. This represents no new user visible functionality, and has minimum impact even on gdb developers. For those of our customers who have been following the development and terminology in ICE, a debugging server provides the functionality that would have been encapsulated in "libgdb". In the process, we have come to the conclusion that definition and prioritization of additional functionality would strongly benefit from having a GUI prototype running. Therefore, rather than having a first implementation of the server by year end, we expect a limited server and a limited X-based GUI prototype in the same timeframe. 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 ------------------------------------------------------------ 10/25/93 495 232 605 2,124 147 3,603 11/22/93 453 262 709 2,284 146 3,854 ------------------------------------------------------------ Change -42 +30 +104 +160 -1 +251 2. Holiday Calendar Cygnus Support will be closed for the following (US) holidays November 25 and 26 Thanksgiving December 24 Christmas Eve December 31 New Year's Eve While we will not be officially closed in the week between Christmas and New Year's, we expect to have only a reduced staff in place. We will make best effort to meet your needs during this period. OTHER ITEMS ----------- 1. FTP Sites We periodically get enquiries about FTP Sites for GNU software. Here is a list of US and overseas sites. AFRICA: ftp.sun.ac.za /pub/gnu ASIA: cair.kaist.ac.kr /pub/gnu ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp /ftpsync/prep AUSTRALIA: archie.au(1) /gnu CANADA: ftp.cs.ubc.ca /mirror2/gnu EUROPE: archive.eu.net ftp.denet.dk ftp.eunet.ch ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de /pub/gnu ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de ftp.luth.se /pub/unix/gnu ftp.mcc.ac.uk ftp.stacken.kth.se ftp.univ-lyon1.fr /pub/gnu ftp.win.tue.nl irisa.irisa.fr /pub/gnu isy.liu.se nic.funet.fi /pub/gnu nic.switch.ch /mirror/gnu src.doc.ic.ac.uk /gnu ugle.unit.no unix.hensa.ac.uk /pub/uunet/systems/gnu MIDDLE-EAST: ftp.technion.ac.il /pub/unsupported/gnu USA: col.hp.com /mirrors/gnu ftp.cs.columbia.edu /archives/gnu/prep ftp.cs.widener.edu ftp.kpc.com /pub/mirror/gnu ftp.uu.net /systems/gnu ftp.uu.net /packages/gnu gatekeeper.dec.com /pub/GNU labrea.stanford.edu nic.funet.fi /pub/gnu prep.ai.mit.edu(2) /pub/gnu uxc.cso.uiuc.edu wuarchive.wustl.edu /mirrors/gnu (1) archie.oz or archie.oz.au for ACSnet (2) Please use this site only as a last resort in order to reduce load. 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 future issue. Printed documentation strategy: We currently provide updated manuals with every quarterly release. This presents two minor difficulties: - The time required for printing has been longer than we would like. - The print run is not large enough to allow the economic use of alternative binding methods. We are now discussing alternate documatation production strategies. One possibility, which is also used by the Free Software Foundation, is to make the manuals longer-lived, and to supplement them with detailed release notes. 1. If we updated the online and printed manuals less frequently, with detailed changes in the release notes, would you find this satisfactory or unsatisfactory? 2. Would you prefer the online documentation to be exactly the same as the printed version? Or would you prefer that we update the online version quarterly, but reprint hardcopy documentation less frequently, supplementing it with detailed release notes? 3. We are considering changing our binding method from 3-ring binder to several flat-spined paperbacks. Does the binding method for our documentation matter to you? ICE distribution: When ICE was first published in January 1992, it was sent to about 30 or so readers. Since then, its distribution has reached over 200 readers and mailing lists. Our target audience has always been our support customers. And while everything we do at Cygnus is freely redistributable, we send ICE to customers - allowing only an occasional issue to be used for Marketing or Sales purposes. However, as supporters of free software, Cygnus has always had a set of Net-based "customers". (See, for example, the two Net releases that we announced in the current issue.) As our second year of publication draws to a close, we are doing some soul-searching about the ICE distribution policy and would like your feedback. 4. Should we make ICE available through various Net publication or information access mechanisms such as anonymous FTP or the World-Wide-Web? 3. Customer Forum Responses In the October issue of ICE, we asked you about your perceptions about our marketing communications. As a series of non-technical questions, this received fewer responses than usual. The following is a list of common points raised by our respondents. - visibility helpful to GNU coaches and champions within larger organizations - ads small and/or not noticeable - need more cross development presence and promotion - like Catalyst CD --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------