Re: New features for GDB under Windows

[Martin Rosenau <martin@rosenau-ka.de>]

Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 12:04:52PM +0800, asmwarrior wrote:
>>> I added the following functionality that was only available under Unix
>>> before:
>>> - Remote debugging using TCP/IP
>>> - Remote debugging using pipes (other program's stdin/stdout)
> 
> Both of these are already included in current versions of Windows
> GDB.
> 
Thanks for that information.
I had a look at the WebCVS and noticed that TCP now really works with
Windows.

However I thinks pipes will only work with Cygwin (Unix simulation on
Windows), not with native Windows (required by Mingw etc.). I still
could apply my patch to the current version of ser-pipe.c, if it is desired.

I also saw that the "remote-array.c" file has been removed; this file
caused a problem trying to use the "monitor" command together with
serial/pipe/TCP targets.

>>> And the new feature:
>>> - Remote debugging using special DLLs (this is faster than TCP/IP or
>>> pipes and allows you to add new hardware targets - like JTAG adapters -
>>> without re-compiling the entire GDB)
> 
> I don't know if this is a desired feature.  It runs into maintenance
> and GPL compliance problems.
> 
The GPL compliance problems are an old problem running GPL programs
under Windows. In some Internet forum I read the discussion if it is
allowed to run GPL programs under Windows at all (it is (nearly)
impossible to run any program under Windows without using Windows'
closed-source DLLs!)
Unfortunately there was no final conclusion about this problem.

If the license problems should be critical some text in the GDB manual
could state something like "The plug-in DLLs used must be under GPL or
LGPL license, otherwise you may violate the license terms of GDB".

What I do not understand is the term "maintenance problems". Do you think
- about compatibility problems (a DLL for 7.x could not run under 8.x)
- or about the "who is responsible" problem (provider of the DLL says:
"bug in GDB", GDB team says: "bug in DLL")
- or are you afraid that there are too many targets in GDB
- or do you think about other problems?

Thanks for your answer.

Martin