Re: egcs-ss-970821 - Run-Time Library Cross Problems

Re: egcs-ss-970821 - Run-Time Library Cross Problems

[Joel Sherrill]

On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, Jim Wilson wrote:

> 	While compiling egcs-ss-970821 to target m68k-rtems, I had to disable
> 	Objective-C and g77 because both assume the existence of a target
> 	C library to build their runtimes.
> 
> Now (as of the next snapshot) that we have gcc and libstdc++ as toplevel
> directories, I would suggest moving the Objective-C runtime and the f77
> runtime out of the gcc directory and into toplevel directories of their own.

Great.  That would certainly fix one of the worst problems in building a
cross environment.  When/where will gcc build its version of limits.h?

> We can then have the toplevel Makefile build gcc first, and then the
> C++/Objective-C/F77 runtimes.  Anyone who needs to build a C library can
> then easily build it after gcc, and before the other language runtimes.

Marvelous!!! 

> This avoids the need for having multiple entry points in the gcc Makefile,
> something which would probably just make gcc unnecessarily complicated.

It is pretty complicated already. :)

--joel

Re: copyright assignment form on the web page

[Joe Buck]

> Could someone fill me in on the extend to which it is necessary for  
> egcs developers to assign copyright to the FSF ?

So that there is no barrier to moving code back and forth between gcc2
and egcs, making possible an eventual re-merge, once we've convinced the
Richards that the egcs way works better. :-)

Re: copyright assignment form on the web page

[Jeffrey A Law]

  In message <9708201547.AA22893@moene.indiv.nluug.nl>you write:
  > >  It's really exciting to see all of these new contributors
  > >  to the GNU compilers.  As Jeff has said here several
  > >  times, we need to have you assign the copyright for these
  > >  changes to the Free Software Foundation before we can
  > >  accept the code.
  > 
  > Could someone fill me in on the extend to which it is necessary for  
  > egcs developers to assign copyright to the FSF ?
  > 
  > Is this only important when you working for someone else ? (you  
  > probably guessed right what `indiv' in my address means - Yes, I'd  
  > rather had it `toon@moene.nl', but Piet Beertema wasn't willing to  
  > allow that ;-)
  > 
  > Is it dependent on the size of the change ?
Yes, it is dependent on the size of the change.

Many years ago I was told any non-trivial change must have a copyright
assignment.  Of course, that begs the question, what is non-trivial.

Jeff

Re: copyright assignment form on the web page

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   From: Toon Moene <toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl>
   Date: Wed, 20 Aug 97 17:47:37 +0200

   Could someone fill me in on the extend to which it is necessary for  
   egcs developers to assign copyright to the FSF ?

See below.

   Is this only important when you working for someone else ? (you  
   probably guessed right what `indiv' in my address means - Yes, I'd  
   rather had it `toon@moene.nl', but Piet Beertema wasn't willing to  
   allow that ;-)

No, it is important for all cases.  If you work for somebody else, and
your employer has any sort of rights to your code, then you must not
only fill out the form yourself, you must also get your employer to
fill out the form.

   Is it dependent on the size of the change ?

Yes.

   E.g. for the release of g77-0.5.17 in November 1995, I suggested  
   Craig to change five characters in the g77 front-end to four other  
   ones.  This saved one scratch integer register on every (counted) do  
   loop and enabled loop unrolling.

That's not a problem.

To quote the GNU maintainers guide:

    For the sake of registering the copyright on later versions of the
    software, you need to keep track of each person who makes significant
    changes.  A change of ten lines or so, or a few such changes, in a
    large program is not significant.

These sorts of copyright issues probably seem particularly stupid to
people who do not live in the U.S.  However, they are important.  The
FSF has reportedly had problems in the distant past with code for
which they did not have a copyright assignment (I'm thinking of emacs
here).

The copyright assignment is not required for suggestions or comments.
It is only required for actual patches.

If you don't work for anybody, then filling out the copyright
assignment is trivial.  If it poses some sort of problem for you, then
you will need to work it out with Richard Stallman.  He is the person
who approves any change to the standard form.

Ian

Re: copyright assignment form on the web page

[Toon Moene]

>  It's really exciting to see all of these new contributors
>  to the GNU compilers.  As Jeff has said here several
>  times, we need to have you assign the copyright for these
>  changes to the Free Software Foundation before we can
>  accept the code.

Could someone fill me in on the extend to which it is necessary for  
egcs developers to assign copyright to the FSF ?

Is this only important when you working for someone else ? (you  
probably guessed right what `indiv' in my address means - Yes, I'd  
rather had it `toon@moene.nl', but Piet Beertema wasn't willing to  
allow that ;-)

Is it dependent on the size of the change ?

E.g. for the release of g77-0.5.17 in November 1995, I suggested  
Craig to change five characters in the g77 front-end to four other  
ones.  This saved one scratch integer register on every (counted) do  
loop and enabled loop unrolling.

Suggestions ?

Cheers,
Toon.

Re: copyright assignment form on the web page

[Nigel Stephens]

meissner@cygnus.com (meissner@cygnus.com) writes:
 > One thing that you may want to do is put down a list of all programs that you
 > might want to hack, ie something like:
 > 
 > 	gcc, g77, g++, gnat, the bfd library, the binutils programs, gas, gld,
 > 	and gdb.
 > 
 > That way you've covered the bases if you find yourself submitting a patch for
 > one of the other tools.

When I tried that a couple of years ago it was rejected by RMS: he
wanted a separate assignment filled in and signed for each separate
program.  Whether gld counts as part of binutils, or g++ as part of
gcc was not clear!

Perhaps he's more relaxed about this now, but it might be worth
checking. 

Regards

-- 
________________________________________________________________________
Nigel Stephens, Algorithmics Ltd, 3 Drayton Park, London N5 1NU. England
mailto:nigel@algor.co.uk                          http://www.algor.co.uk
phone:+44 171 700 3301	   mobile:+44 976 686470    fax:+44 171 700 3400

Re: copyright assignment form on the web page

[meissner]

| It's really exciting to see all of these new contributors to the GNU
| compilers.  As Jeff has said here several times, we need to have you
| assign the copyright for these changes to the Free Software Foundation
| before we can accept the code.
| 
| The standard copyright assignment form is now on our web page (towards
| the bottom), you can get directly to it at
| 
| 	http://www.cygnus.com/egcs/assignment-instructions.html
| 
| Be sure to use a name like gcc, g77, or g++ for "NAME OF PROGRAM"; 
| egcs should probably not be used here.

One thing that you may want to do is put down a list of all programs that you
might want to hack, ie something like:

	gcc, g77, g++, gnat, the bfd library, the binutils programs, gas, gld,
	and gdb.

That way you've covered the bases if you find yourself submitting a patch for
one of the other tools.

copyright assignment form on the web page

[Jason Molenda]

It's really exciting to see all of these new contributors to the GNU
compilers.  As Jeff has said here several times, we need to have you
assign the copyright for these changes to the Free Software Foundation
before we can accept the code.

The standard copyright assignment form is now on our web page (towards
the bottom), you can get directly to it at

	http://www.cygnus.com/egcs/assignment-instructions.html

Be sure to use a name like gcc, g77, or g++ for "NAME OF PROGRAM"; 
egcs should probably not be used here.


Jason