x86 fpu
H.J. Lu
hjl@lucon.org
Thu Oct 21 07:50:00 GMT 1999
>
>
> Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 23:06:00 -0700 (PDT)
> From: hjl@lucon.org (H.J. Lu)
>
> [...] It is a pain for me to maintain my
> private versions. But I hate to see the Linux people nowhere to
> go for help. Do you really honestly believe that a new official
> version should be made whenever a serious Linux related bug is
> fixed or we have to live with the bug which mainly affects Linux?
>
> That's not necessarily a bad idea... If one were to look at which
> platform has the largest number of GDB-using programmers these days,
> it would most likely be GNU/Linux by far. Why can't the GDB release
Please also remember that the GNU tools are the only ones GNU/Linux
get. If they don't work for us, we have to find a workaround one way
or the other.
> schedule be adjusted to accommodate the majority of users?
I am glad to see it is happening for gdb. Finally I can get rid of my
Linux version of gdb. I wish I could say the same for other tools.
BTW, I have sent in a patch for cplus-dem.c to the gcc patches mailing
list. It is/will be used by some of GNU/Linux tools. However, I have
a feeling that it will take forever to get accepted.
>
> I have been sending my patches to the appropriate people. But they
> don't work only for Linux. My patches have to wait, but Linux cann't.
> It is not that unusual to take a few months or more for my patches
> to be installed. What do we do?
>
> This is the genesis of the situation. Patch submissions should be
> acted upon promptly, whether to accept or reject. It's my
> responsibility to see that this happens, and if I fail at that,
> I'm not going to fault anyone for coming up with workarounds like
> splinter versions.
Sometimes, it takes a splinter version to get things done and we have
to take the consequences. I am not proud of the Linux C library 5. I
wish it had never happened. But without it, we may never have Linux
nor glibc 2 today.
>
> I hope everybody agrees that patch turnaround has improved over the
> past several months. It's still not where it should be; if you feel a
> worthy patch is being ignored, please send me mail with lots of
> capital letters and exclamation points, or call me on the phone at
> +1 408 542 9678.
I will send in a few patches after x86 fpu is resolved.
>
> I will work with everyone to merge my changes. But it doesn't mean
> I will stop working for the Linux community. We have different
> priorities. That is life.
>
> This should not be true however. I used to think this myself, until
> RMS pointed out that since Linux is one of the official kernels for
> the GNU system, GDB support for it ought to be a higher priority than
> support for non-GNU systems. Of course, GDB is still free software
> like always, and I still want to encourage people to contribute
> improvements for non-GNU systems as well.
>
> Lately, Jim Blandy and Jim Kingdon have stepped up to the task of
> making sure the FSF version of GDB is fully functional for GNU/Linux,
> and there has been considerable progress, as witness the discussion of
> x86 float support. Also, Scott Bambrough has been hard at work on
> Netwinder (ARM) support, and Kevin Buettner is on PowerPC. At this
> rate, I expect that the upcoming 5.0 release will be the version of
> choice for GNU/Linux.
First is glibc, now is gdb. What are the next? binutils and gcc? I
am not holding my breath.
Thanks.
--
H.J. Lu (hjl@gnu.org)
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