RE: GDB is the GNU project's native debugger

["Dave Korn" <dk@artimi.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gdb-owner On Behalf Of Andrew Cagney
> Sent: 16 November 2004 16:43

> 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?


  Well, "Up to a point, Lord Copper".

  I will take it that you do not mean that the primary purpose of GDB is to run
under the HURD, since that doesn't really fully exist or work.  I'm not sure
what you mean by "GNU system**S**" in the plural, because that's the only one.
Unixen are largely proprietary, and GNU/Linux is GNU/Linux, and not just plain
GNU.  If you'd care to enlarge and clarify on the precise shade of meaning you
were attaching to the phrase, I might modify some of what follows from here.

  To my understanding, and correct me if you feel I've misunderstood, a major
part of the purpose of the GNU project is to encourage and evangelise the spread
of open source, and the strategic method for achieving that goal is to provide
free software, in particular a free toolchain, across as wide a range of
platforms as possible, and in particular the reason for the existence of the
LGPL exception is to enable the GNU toolchain and software family to be ported
to proprietary systems and to make inroads for open software there and convince
users of proprietary systems of the value and benefits that can be obtained from
the open source philosophy.

  So while I can see that it would make both philosophical, technical and
political sense to prioritise support for the more open systems above support
for proprietary ones, I don't think that policy should be pursued
over-zealously.  We _want_ users of proprietary systems to throw away their
proprietary tools and start using open ones and writing open code.

  Gcc and binutils both make a point of attempting to natively support a very
wide range of platforms for just this reason.  I think that GDB should be
attempting to target fairly much the same range.




    cheers, 
      DaveK
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