$2000 USD Reward for help fixing Segmentation Fault in GC

Help!

Our Ruby controlled Robotic Marine Laboratory started failing
with Segmentation Faults just a few days before it was to be
deployed.  We had seen random, very occasional Segmentation
Faults for some months, as our application grew larger
and more complex.  Then, just days before the ship
was scheduled to sail, after we'd integrated a couple new and
exciting features, we started getting segfaults regularly.

Please see [ruby-core:11218] & [ruby-core:11228] for more details
including URLs to a core dump and stack trace.

The 200+ level stack trace indicates that the application was deep
into a GC cycle while executing Marshal.dump when the segfault
occurred.


Here are the details on the reward:

  The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (http://www.mbari.org)
is offering $2000 USD to the first person to provide a software
fix to the bug causing the above described Segmentation Faults
in our application.  Our application is arguably one of the cooler,
more unusual uses of Ruby:

http://www.mbari.org/microbial/ESP/
http://www.zenspider.com/dl/rubyconf2005/EmbeddedRuby.pdf

I will provide support to individuals who offer plausible
suggestions.  E-mail suggested fixes or queries for specific
information to me directly if you do
not wish to share them with the list.  Whatever fix finally
is determined to work will be shared with the list, after
the individual providing it is paid, so that the community
may also benefit.

The fine print:

Funds will be paid by corporate cheque in U.S. Dollars after
the bug fix is verified to work.  Verification may take up to 45 days
from the submission of the prospective fix.  Only the first working
bug fix submitted by email to [e-mail] will be rewarded.

Individuals obligated to pay U.S. taxes on their income will
be sent an IRS form 1099 from MBARI at year's end.
If you are a United States citizen or have a "green card", you will
need to send MBARI your mailing address and
U.S. Social Security Number before receiving
payment and should expect to pay income tax on the reward.
Individuals not obligated to pay U.S. income tax will have the
option to receive payment via bank wire rather than cheque.

I will post to this list, roughly on a weekly basis, the number of
plausible, prospective fixes we have received thus far. 
After we've received ten or so from different individuals, we will
cease accepting any more.

-- 
 Brent Roman                                   MBARI
 Software Engineer               Tel: [phone]
 7700 Sandholdt Road,         Moss Landing, CA 95039
 mailto:[e-mail]  http://www.mbari.org/~brent