Re: heads up: GDB 7.7 official release Wed Jan 29th (tomorrow)

[Mark Kettenis <mark.kettenis@xs4all.nl>]

> Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 12:14:08 +0400
> From: Joel Brobecker <brobecker@adacore.com>
> 
> > I would certainly appreciate that -- thanks!
> > 
> > As to changes in other ports, I think it should be pretty clear
> > that non-PowerPC platforms cannot really be affected.  (There are
> > some changes to common code in the 11/11 patch, but that shouldn't
> > affect any platform that do not define gdbarch_skip_entrypoint.)
> > 
> > As to other PowerPC platforms, I've tested powerpc64-linux quite a
> > bit -- I would be happy to also run a regression test on a 32-bit
> > Linux and on AIX.
> 
> OK, I've had a chance to review the patches, and I am definitely
> hesitating. I agree that they can only affect PowerPC. If you feel
> very confident about the patches and want to take responsibility,
> I will go with your call. Advice from the other GMs would also be
> useful.
> 
> My preference goes towards getting this code in the master branch
> first, release 7.7 without it, and then re-evaluate. If proven after
> an observation period to be stable in master, we can elect to backport
> the code to 7.7 in time for 7.7.1. But if people prefer, we can also
> accelerate the schedule for 7.8.

I'd say that rushing changes like this in just before release is just
bad engineering practice in general.  And in this case I have a hard
time convincing myself that this will not break existing big-endian
PowerPC targets.  This is the sort of stuff that you want to get in
early in a release cycle.  I also think we shouldn't do these
feature-driven release adjustments.  There's just to many external
variables to take them into account.

So I'd say this should go onto master after 7.7 has been released, and
7.8 should be released according to the normal schedule.  If meanwhile
IBM or any of the Linux distros wants to ship a 64-bit wrong-endian
PowerPC toolchain they can just take 7.7 and apply the patches.