From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 31156 invoked by alias); 16 Nov 2004 23:58:53 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 31127 invoked from network); 16 Nov 2004 23:58:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO gizmo03bw.bigpond.com) (144.140.70.13) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 16 Nov 2004 23:58:47 -0000 Received: (qmail 17847 invoked from network); 16 Nov 2004 23:58:45 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO bwmam05.bigpond.com) (144.135.24.81) by gizmo03bw.bigpond.com with SMTP; 16 Nov 2004 23:58:45 -0000 Received: from cpe-203-51-245-209.qld.bigpond.net.au ([203.51.245.209]) by bwmam05.bigpond.com(MAM REL_3_4_2a 38/8542091) with SMTP id 8542091; Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:58:46 +1000 Message-ID: <419A943B.7020106@neurizon.net> Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:31:00 -0000 From: Steven Johnson User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040115 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gdb@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: GDB is the GNU project's native debugger References: <419A2E2F.5010602@gnu.org> In-Reply-To: <419A2E2F.5010602@gnu.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2004-11/txt/msg00177.txt.bz2 Andrew Cagney wrote: > GDB is the GNU project's native debuger. While we're certainly happy > to accomodate people using GDB as either an embedded debugger or > native debugger on other systems, the need to persue GDB as a native > debugger on GNU systems must be our first priority. > > Do we all agree with this? > > My 2c. The statement doesnt mean anything. As the code in GDB is developed by the donations of people, in either time or money to companies who spend time. The "primary" focus of GDB will always be the focus of the majority of "donators/contributors" at any one time, and will change over time, as the groups "majority" need changes. The (flavour of Open Source) licence is largely irrelevent, except to the point that it allows people to feel (more or less) comfortable in donating their time to a "common good". So no, i dont agree with this statement. I would agree with a statement that said "the majority of people (at the current time) who use GDB are debugging programs compiled with GCC". After that, if tomorrow we get 1000 developers donating their time to support Windows XP native debugging of Visual C++, thats going to be the "priority" because they will swamp (by their needs and the level of their donation at the current time) the needs and level of donation of all others combined. And we as a group should be thankful for that, because it is unlikely that all that work will only be useful for one target platform, so even if it doesnt advance the philosophical war, it certainly advances the tool which we all use. Andrew, Can you illuminate us as to why this "philosophical" debat has been raised? What problem are you trying to solve or prevent? My belief is one of the pleasures of the GDB community is the lack of this sort of largely pointless debate. Steven