Re: dump memory to file

[Kevin Buettner <kevinb at cygnus dot com>]

On Aug 22, 12:53pm, Grant Edwards wrote:

> > However, for such a change to be incorporated into GDB, the
> > author(s) of the change must have a copyright assignment in
> > place with the FSF. Sometimes it quite challenging to make sure
> > that all of the legal documents are signed by the right
> > people...
> 
> OK, let me see if I've got this: LynuxWorks can't not
> distribute the changes, and they can't prevent anybody else
> from distributing them, but the changes won't be incorporated
> into the official sources without a copyright assignment.

Right.

> I just went through the whole copyright assignment thing with
> my employer so I could donate some stuff to eCos.  It took
> years and cost thousands of lives.
> 
> Well... it did take almost a year.

I know.  I can tell some similar stories from personal experience.

In my opinion, there are many worthwhile changes that don't make it
into the mainline sources because the legal hoop jumping is so
difficult.  Many people are more than happy to send you their changes
and tell you (in email) that these changes may be incorporated into
the the sources, but they are absolutely not interested in obtaining
the legal documents and then pushing these documents through the
appropriate corporate channels to be signed by all the right people.
Frequently too, the corporate lawyers need to become involved and
when this happens, it can drag out the process almost interminably.

> Unless LynuxWorks is already set up to do stuff like that, it
> would be easier for me to just impliment it on my own.  I
> suppose it won't hurt to ask them -- I'm pretty sure I've got a
> business card from that Embedded Systems Conference...

It certainly won't hurt to ask, but, since you already have an
assignment in place, it will almost certainly be quicker to
reimplement this functionality yourself.

Kevin