From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 12735 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 2009 05:56:05 -0000 Received: (qmail 12723 invoked by uid 22791); 23 Apr 2009 05:56:04 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_20,SPF_PASS X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mail.codesourcery.com (HELO mail.codesourcery.com) (65.74.133.4) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:55:59 +0000 Received: (qmail 28995 invoked from network); 23 Apr 2009 05:55:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO macbook-2.local) (stan@127.0.0.2) by mail.codesourcery.com with ESMTPA; 23 Apr 2009 05:55:57 -0000 Message-ID: <49F002E7.7080901@codesourcery.com> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:56:00 -0000 From: Stan Shebs User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (Macintosh/20090302) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mark Kettenis CC: drow@false.org, tromey@redhat.com, gdb-patches@sourceware.org Subject: Re: [FYI] Inlining support, rough patch References: <20080613152754.GA4220@caradoc.them.org> <20080715192020.GB3094@caradoc.them.org> <200807172353.m6HNr1nY015884@brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <20080718130308.GA19045@caradoc.them.org> <200807251446.m6PEkfwc027635@brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <20080725174636.GB2433@caradoc.them.org> <200903312042.n2VKgIUx003764@brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <20090420154909.GA5386@caradoc.them.org> <200904222203.n3MM3Wo5001785@brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl> In-Reply-To: <200904222203.n3MM3Wo5001785@brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2009-04/txt/msg00635.txt.bz2 Mark Kettenis wrote: > That said, the proper response from me would be to hack up something > closer to what the right solution would be. But I'm afraid I simply > don't have the motivation to do such a thing anymore. The environment > in which GDB is being developed seems to have changed. It feels like > I'm the only one who is still hacking on code for fun, and that I'm > being surrounded by people for which writing GDB code is their job. > It sometimes feels like most of the effort goes into supporting > debugging embedded targets hosted on non-free operating systems. I think that's a little unfair. Red Hat and IBM people are doing only Linux of course, and the majority of CodeSourcery's GDB work is targeting either Linux or bare metal. What non-free operating systems are you thinking of? DICOS? I'm looking at gdb/NEWS, and that's the only non-free OS I'm seeing that has gotten any work at all in the past several years. If anything, proprietary OS support is a rapidly dwindling part of GDB work, certainly far less than it was in the 1990s, when much time went into handling the combined idiosyncrasies of HP/UX, Solaris, AIX, OSF/1, Irix, etc. As for people hacking for fun vs pay, I don't really know how much that's changed. In 1999, when we moved to a public repository, it was a little bit of an act of faith that contributors were going to show up, because prior to that almost of the GDB hacking was done by Cygnus employees on the clock, and the patch submissions I received were almost all related to the submitters' jobs. So if there was a golden age of hacking GDB for fun, it had to be either before 1994 when I started with it, or after 2000. But to speak to motivation, if you're burned out on GDB, for whatever reason, then take a break and kick back! I've spent 25 years - most of my adult life - working on free software. I've been enthused, and burnt out, and enthused again, multiple times. One of the beauties of the large collaborative project is that any one of us can go do something else for a while, and the project keeps right on going. In fact, that's one way for participation to become non-fun, when we start to feel indispensable, or like the sole gatekeeper for a part of the system, and we feel like we have to do things out of necessity rather than free choice. So each of us should self-monitor, and if we're starting to feel stressed, disengage a bit and trust that our colleagues will carry on. Stan