FSF's Richard Stallman Calls LLVM a 'Terrible Setback' 1098
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Stallman has called LLVM a terrible setback in a new mailing list exchange over GCC vs. Clang. LLVM continues to be widely used and grow in popularity for different uses, but it's under a BSD-style license rather than the GPL. RMS wrote, 'For GCC to be replaced by another technically superior compiler that defended freedom equally well would cause me some personal regret, but I would rejoice for the community's advance. The existence of LLVM is a terrible setback for our community precisely because it is not copylefted and can be used as the basis for nonfree compilers — so that all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us.'"
Maybe if GCC wasn't such a pain in the ass (Score:5, Interesting)
If the gcc codebase was a bit more reasonable and it didn't require an entire legal team to get permission to contribute to their code, maybe this wouldn't have happened.
FSF are working on it; Scans accepted for US + DE (Score:4, Informative)
You'll be delighted to hear that for people in the USA and Germany, the process is now just sign it and scan it:
More countries will follow as the legal advice comes in.
Proprietary Software built on Open Standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Proprietary Software built on Open Standards (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not. That's not a choice, it's a false dichotomy.
Open software constructed with open standards is preferable to proprietary software. You're implying that a lesser evil is somehow still ok. No thanks.
Sorry man, but not everyone agrees with you (Score:5, Interesting)
In particular, not everyone agrees with his rather narrow definition of "freedom". Some developers like the whole BSD thing, which gives more freedom to the person who uses and implements the software, rather than the original developer. It is akin to the CC-BY license, where you want to have your stuff acknowledged as a source, but you welcome people to do with it as they please.
I have no problem with the GPL, but the zealots that seem to think it is the only way EVAR that is ok and that people who want a less restrictive license like BSD are bad get on my nerves.
Precisely (Score:5, Informative)
This is exactly the problem with the GPL. Its advocates want everything to be free, and are giddy about the possibility of bringing suit against people who so much as linked to a GPL'd library and forcing their work to be GPL.
It's viral, and not in a good way. Comments like "all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us" show your cards. Stallman not only is an advocate for free software; he would rather harm or hamstring free software in order to damage proprietary software.
I'm not about to defend the practices of certain large corporations. But in education and medicine, institutional rules over IP forbid many people I know of from even linking to a GPL'd library. For us, if it's GPL'd then it is off limits.
Also, having a friendly non-adversarial relationship with industry is useful and will result in much broader use of your software. For most FOSS projects, exposure and reaching a critical mass of contributors is crucial. The BSD is inherently helpful in this case. The GPL just scares people off, because it asserts control over code you haven't even written just because you decided to use something that happened to have a GPL license.
So, no, Stallman, I disagree and furthermore I condemn your argument as unproductive, wrong, and unhelpful. You might have ground to stand on if LLVM were closed source but it's open - in fact, it's under a more permissive license than the GPL.
Re: (Score:3)
But in education and medicine, institutional rules over IP forbid many people I know of from even linking to a GPL'd library. For us, if it's GPL'd then it is off limits.
But isn't that why libraries are (or should) be licensed under the LGPL, so that there are no "viral" issues? You're not even allowed to link to an LGPL library?
Re: (Score:3)
But in education and medicine, institutional rules over IP forbid many people I know of from even linking to a GPL'd library. For us, if it's GPL'd then it is off limits.
But isn't that why libraries are (or should) be licensed under the LGPL, so that there are no "viral" issues? You're not even allowed to link to an LGPL library?
The problem is 90% of software developers do not know the difference between LGPL and GPL. It pisses me off when they groan ... but but why didn't you use my api? I can't. Your license dictates that I can't earn a living off it nor can my employer.
Sorry I am not redhat and can't charge for support. It is stupid. Sure you ahve the right as a developer but really so and I mean sooo many apis are GPL and not LGPL that the authors do a diservice without even realizing it.
But not everyone is a lawyer unfortunate
Re:Precisely (Score:5, Interesting)
But isn't that why libraries are (or should) be licensed under the LGPL, so that there are no "viral" issues? You're not even allowed to link to an LGPL library?
RMS doesn't really like the LGPL. The first L used to stand for "Library" but these days it stands for "Lesser" to indicate its proper place. RMS would rather all libraries be GPL. (Of course, RMS would rather all software of any sort be GPL.)
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html [gnu.org]
LGPL actually contains some strange provisions that can be a deal breaker. For example, LGPL requires that you take no steps to prevent your customers from reverse-engineering your software. I once worked on a project where part of the technology stack came with a legal requirement to take steps to prevent customers from reverse-engineering, so LGPL was just as radioactive as GPL.
IMHO, LGPL is not a good license and should go away. It should be replaced by the GUILE license, which is simply GPL with an exception: linking the library does not in any way invoke the viral GPL features. So, if you fix bugs or add features in the library, you must share your code so other users of the library gain the benefit; but you are free to link the library with proprietary software if you wish.
The above will not happen, as RMS and the FSF consider the viral aspects of GPL to be a feature.
Re:Precisely (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is that you are worried about computing in the current world.
RMS is worried about the future of computing, and has helped shape it, winning several battles, even though he is losing the war.
Of course there are IP laws/contracts/whatever that don't let you link to GPLed code. That's why it's GPLed, so the work of free software developer does not help those who want to shrink our freedom.
You can use our work, if you share, if you don't share, go build it yourself. It _is_ us versus them, and RMS sees it very clearly.
Fifteen years ago, RMS rants about a dystopian future looked exaggerated. Right now, they look like old news.
You are right that the GPL is a PITA when you want to work with proprietary software, that's not a bug, it's a feature, which BSD software lacks. That's because the GPL is supposed to have a long term effect.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As a _user_ of GPL software, you can link it to whatever you want, including your butt, without having to care about the license one iota.
GPL advocates disagree. That is why things like GCC has the runtime library exception that explicitly allows proprietary software to link to them.
Re:Sorry man, but not everyone agrees with you (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think he's asking you to agree with him. I think he's expressing his opinion of LLVM within the context of his goals. Given it happened on the GCC mailing list, I hardly see this as shocking or surprising.
Re:Sorry man, but not everyone agrees with you (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed.
It sounds like RMS is butthurt that GCC is losing popularity ?
Choice for the consumer is good.
In an ideal world we would all have the source for every program so we can diagnose it.
In an ideal world we would only _need_ 1 compiler instead of everyone wasting man-years re-inventing yet another "wheel".
I deeply admire anyone who can remain committed to taking their ideology to an extreme by living it. However, such ideology is not appreciated, or understand by the majority. There are more "practical" and "pragmatic" sacrifices that sometimes must be made. Not everyone values Freedom the same way. :-( I'm sure Richard understands that some are willing to trade Freedom for Convenience. And his warning will probably be hauntingly true years down the road. Having someone who is able to look at the "bigger" picture must seem like a lonely, and unpopular job, but I am glad we have someone who does that.
However, taking a step back, what are _all_ the reasons that people are switching over to LLVM in the first place?
- Is part of the bigger picture is that GCC doesn't make it easy to embed into an IDE?
- If LLVM is "cleaner" under the hood so you don't need to be a compiler expert to modify / fix it, shouldn't that be a wake up call for GCC to clean up the code + architecture ?
- If I want to just make a front-end for a new (programming) language why is it easier with LLVM then with GCC ?
What are the fundamental reasons (aside from licensing issues) that Apple switched from GCC to LLVM, and others?
Re:Sorry man, but not everyone agrees with you (Score:5, Informative)
- Is part of the bigger picture is that GCC doesn't make it easy to embed into an IDE?
Yes, and the fact that that is (or was) deliberate on RMS / GGC's part, therefore changing it required policy / politics not just contributing some code changes.
- If LLVM is "cleaner" under the hood so you don't need to be a compiler expert to modify / fix it, shouldn't that be a wake up call for GCC to clean up the code + architecture ?
In one sense it already has - on gnu.org there are relatively recent pages around plans for modular gcc. Unfortunately it is now years behind on this and may never catch up, as many of those interested in working on things like this will probably use CLang / LLVM rather than work on getting GCC to do the job.
There is also the issue that historically GCC architecture is deliberately unclean in order to prevent your previous (and following) suggestions. RMS does not want GCC to play any part in a toolchain/process which might have non-GPL parts, but that can't be controlled with copyright licence because simply reading / producing e.g an intermediate language does not make a derivative work. Hence GCC is locked-down technically so you can't access any of the intermediate steps. Some of it is probably historical accident of complexity and some is by design - but also by design it hasn't been cleaned up (so far).
Essentially, in order to satisfy a licencing goal that can't be achieved with a licence, GCC has been deliberately crippled.
RMS:
- If I want to just make a front-end for a new (programming) language why is it easier with LLVM then with GCC ?
Because LLVM IR is _much_ better documented, because that was a goal of LLVM project. For political reasons why that is, see above.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly, it gives more freedom to the person who uses the product that some middleman developer closed-sourced.
Oh wait...
Re:Sorry man, but not everyone agrees with you (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno about you, but I’ve never had any code I’ve written pass a Turing test then demand emancipation. Ultimately, the person who spent the time to create something is the one who should get to choose what “free” means to them and release their work with the appropriate terms.
Some developers prefer to favor the freedom of the people who get code from them, over the freedoms of people who might (or might not) get the code from someone else, second hand. That’s BSD licensing. I give you my code, you do what you want with it, including telling other people they can’t do the same.
Other developers prefer to make commercial exploitation of their work difficult. They say you can use their code, but you have to give both the original code and your changes to everyone else. That’s GPL.
Both are valid options, and there’s no reason the developers shouldn’t be “free” to release their code under whichever terms are most attractive to them. RMS’ claim that LLVM is somehow a “setback” because its developers choose to favor their immediate users’ freedoms is offensive. Stallman is in effect saying that developers *shouldn’t* have the freedom to decide how other people can use their code.
Based on what I’ve read of RMS’ writings, I don’t buy his assertion that it’s about freedom of the code. It’s about undermining proprietary commercial software and moving towards a communism of software. I also think he’s a little bit jealous that LLVM really is a technically superior compiler suite and much more clearly written to boot.
I really don’t have very much tolerance left for people claiming you can only be free if you do it their way. You keep using that word, but I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Apple's goal was better dev tools (Score:5, Informative)
Because Apple's goal is to undermine GCC
That was never Apple's goal. Remember that Apple used GCC for years.
Apple's goal was instead to have a better development tool, and GCC was a roadblock. It was preventing enhancement of warnings the editor could give, real time feedback as to the code that was being written. It also had a somewhat primitive debugging experience (as much as I like GDB and have used it for many years, LLDB is better).
Apple moved to LLVM not out of any wish to harm GCC but because it was no longer possible to advance without newer and more advanced compiler technology.
Re:GPL and BSD give uses the same freedoms (Score:4, Insightful)
For example if I write a hello world program in C++ and iostream.h is GPL. Then hello world can't be released unless it also is GPL. See the problem?
Wrong GCC libraries are GPL with an exception [gnu.org], for example
As a special exception, you may use this file as part of a free software
library without restriction. Specifically, if other files instantiate
templates or use macros or inline functions from this file, or you compile
this file and link it with other files to produce an executable, this
file does not by itself cause the resulting executable to be covered by
the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however
invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by
the GNU General Public License.
Not helping vs harming (Score:5, Insightful)
so that all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us.'"
And that is a problem why? THIS is the problem I have with RMS, is that anything that helps OTHER people is considered "bad" even if it helps you, equally.
At some point, actively trying to NOT help others, even if it helps you, is counter Productive to your own cause. BSD license, doesn't harm ANYONE and is "more free" license, compared to GPL.
Re:Not helping vs harming (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
No, He isn't against "closed source" he is against anything that might be able to make closed source, even if it is completely free AND free (BSD). This is why he opposes BSD licensed material, not because it is free and free, but because it MIGHT be used in closed source.
Be opposed to closed source all you want, but if if tool is free and free why would you oppose it?
Re: (Score:3)
He is agaisn't it.
Go google "Told you so" when the creators of bitkeeper told Linus to stop letting those use their software?
RMS and others grinned that those who use proprietary software should be punished for this. Meanwhile a flamewar developed on slashdot over this.
Consistent, yet counter-productive. (Score:5, Interesting)
Are we going to swear off eating apples because they provide the same level of nutrition to Bill Gates? Fuck that: I like apples
Why do free contracting work? (Score:3, Insightful)
I like to think of it as, why are you doing FREE work for a proprietary company that has no obligation to you other than to possibly hide your name at the bottom of a long list of credits buried in the help menu? This is what the BSD license allows.
If they aren't going to pay me, then I want them to have to contribute back anything they do with my software, which is what GPL requires. THAT is their way of paying me for my time -- that down the road I can save some time by getting help back from them. And no
Re:Why do free contracting work? (Score:5, Insightful)
I like to think of it as, why are you doing FREE work for a proprietary company that has no obligation to you
Because it makes everyone's life better. If that's not reason enough, I don't know what else to tell you.
What's wrong with doing work that you expect ZERO acknowledgement from anyone? I learned something doing the work, and something else somewhere I might use one day works better as a result. That's a win no matter how jaded a filter you chose to apply.
Inherently acknowledged by license (Score:3)
Nothing, so long as you explicitly acknowledge that as a possibility.
it's not just a possibility, it's my INTENT when contributing to any BSD project.
Here's another reason for you why this is of value. You work at a few companies, you work on proprietary code. Over time, you get really tired of writing some of the same code for multiple companies.
But if you are contributing to a BSD project, you get to use the same code no matter what company you go to. You are in fact contributing to other companies for
Re:Why do free contracting work? (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS couldn't care less if other companies profit off of his work.
What he cares about is some company taking his work, making it better, selling it back to him and then not letting him hack on it, fix it, port it to unapproved hardware, use it for unapproved uses, et cetera.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, here's the point, today many, many embedded systems on odd architectures use gcc as it's the low cost easy to port compiler of choice. Due to the copyleft license any changes these platform developers make to gcc and distribute to users have to be released back to the community so open source systems can easily be ported to the platform. If you let them just take the compiler work and make their own proprietary compiler that platform may never be able to be supported by open systems.
RMS Right, Again (Score:5, Interesting)
RMS is right, again. This does erode the GPL advantages.
But, the answer is fairly straight forward and I don't understand why it wasn't done in the first place. LLVM's BSD license lends itself well to being forked into a GPLed fork LLVM(BSD) -> LLVM-NG(GPL) -> -> ->
BSD helps proprietary software AND GPL. QED.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly, give the BSD crowd a taste of their own medicine and solve the problem. Why haven't they done this yet?
I stole the free couch you gave me. TAKE THAT!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, Stallman. You so crazy. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is like the US saying "A cure for cancer would be a major setback to the US, as it would also enable our enemies to be cancer-free".
New, FOSS software which is awesome is a Good Thing, for the community as a whole. Sure, its license allows people who don't care for FOSS to use it, but surely a net improvement in the community's state of the art can't be a bad thing. If nothing else, this licensure allows people with bigger wallets to pay for improvements which they need, and to have those available to the community too, allowing copylefties more time to work on other things.
Re:Oh, Stallman. You so crazy. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a more accurate version of your analogy. The freedom afforded by the BSD license has value to the users of software, indeed. But it has much greater value to those who would sell proprietary forks. For example, I run OpenBSD. I like that it's open source, and I like that I can do basically anything I want with it, so long as I preserve attribution information. However, I haven't modified the code, and I don't really get any meaningful value from being able to do so and then sell my fork as closed-source software. As a counterpoint, Apple likes LLVM. They've modified it, and they're selling their proprietary fork as XCode. They've found great value in the freedom afforded them by the BSD license. The users of XCode, however, aren't seeing much benefit from the BSD license, because it never got to them. Apple ate it along the way.
I think it's self-evident that the BSD license benefits "the enemy" (profit-generating businesses) more than it benefits "us" (the users of software), which renders your analogy misleading.
Of course, this is a dramatic oversimplification of the BSD vs GPL debate, as there are many more implications of choosing a license than what is detailed here. I'm no GPL fanboi, and I can see why developers would prefer BSD simply to avoid all the legal confusion that comes with GPL. However, to portray GPL as crazy, or senseless, or wrong, is to be quite myopic. There are valid arguments to be made in favor of either license, and the philosophical differences are deeper than many are capable of admitting.
Us versus Them (Score:3)
The existence of LLVM is a terrible setback for our community precisely because it is not copylefted and can be used as the basis for nonfree compilers — so that all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us.
Isn't it sad the way he sees this as a loss in the war of "Us versus Them" rather than as a "technically superior compiler" resulting in a bigger pie for everybody?
Re:Us versus Them (Score:5, Insightful)
The existence of LLVM is a terrible setback for our community precisely because it is not copylefted and can be used as the basis for nonfree compilers — so that all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us.
Isn't it sad the way he sees this as a loss in the war of "Us versus Them" rather than as a "technically superior compiler" resulting in a bigger pie for everybody?
Well he doesn't just care about technical superiority. He has never claimed that "free software" is important because it is inherently technically superior to proprietary code, or that it will always be more secure.
In fact, the term "open source" was coined during the late 90s dot-com bubble precisely because Stallman has always argued that there are important ethical principles at stake in software development, and some people were worried that this concept of "behaving according to a set of ethics" would sound too much like hippy 60's nonsense. Businesses might be discouraged, and then how would we have got crazy stock market floations, dizzying P/E ratios and Scrooge McDuck-style money baths? Instead they wanted a way to push this growing set of software with revised presentation approach that was value-neutral, and so they came up with the idea that by rebranding it as "open source" and stressing only its supposed technical merits, the men in expensive suits would not be disturbed from their vocation of grabbing as much money as possible.
You might not agree with Stallman's view on ethics - many don't - but it is a little sad to see how much crap he gets even for suggesting that people should stop to consider ethics before reaching for "a bigger pie for everybody".
GPL/BSD (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll bite. I do think that RMS has a point about the open source compiler of record being under the GPL, as well as the operating system and other essential build tools and core platform elements. Many people will rightly point out, yet again, that GPL is a pretty aggressive license for most userland software, but when it comes to the platform itself, this aggression seems to be quite desirable. Also, these value statements seem temporally bound to the moment. Maybe in the future we will live in a set of legal and intellectual circumstances where RMS has basically won and that maybe a good thing.
So I wonder he isn't right about it being sad that LLVM is not under copyleft.
It's really simple... (Score:5, Informative)
People are focusing on BSD versus GPL, but really, the thing to see here is Stallman's definition of "community". If you would ever let your software be used by for-profit interests, you are not part of the community he is speaking of, and claims to speak for. It's just that simple, no flamage or politics implied by saying that.
I've long said that people should chose a license the way they choose a screwdriver, not the way they would chose a religion. What are you trying to achieve? Want total world domination for a new protocol? Go BSD. Want to keep for-profit entities from rent-seeking based on your work? Go GPL.
It's OK to be part of Stallman's community. It's also OK to not be part of Stallman's community. It's OK for RMS to be dissapointed with people who are not part of his community. It's OK for people not part of Stallman's community to not give a rat's ass what RMS thinks.
I'll say this though, the number times I've originally dismissed one of RMS's ideas a crack-pot loony assertion, and then five years later come to see the point he was trying to make, is non-zero.
And? (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is only a problem if you actively do NOT want to help proprietary software.
I don't want to hinder proprietary software. I want to boost open software. There's a difference.
Proprietary software has it's place and, in a free market, people will choose whatever is best for them.
As in many things (feminism, sexism, racism, etc.) there are always some people who will champion the cause right through equality and out the other side.
You know what? I don't mind that proprietary software could take something like LLVM, do stuff with it, and sell it. So long as they can't stop ***ME*** taking LLVM, and doing what I want with it.
Historically "Free" software was hard to find and so proprietary was your only choice. From there, I would prefer to have open software which proprietary people can take and use too if they want. Pretty much, nowadays, you can find an open equivalent of just about anything but the most locked-in of protocols/programs.
But what I don't want is to tell everyone in the world they are an idiot if they don't open-source everything. All that does is make people hate you, and think you're an idiot. Instead, let's lead the way and **IGNORE** proprietary software, and put the lobbying efforts towards the choice of freedom, and writing good code.
When their customers realise that there's better software out there, for free, they will have to up their game, or start rolling up their sleeves to help.
We don't have to go around actively attacking them for daring to be proprietary. And we certainly don't have to get all snotty because a piece of software can be used by anyone.
LLVM was offered for GCC-Next (Score:5, Insightful)
It would behove Stallman to admit that his/GCCs insistence on obfuscated/incomplete intermediary representations was never tenable in the long term. If they had just adopted LLVM for GCC-Next when it was offered this wouldn't have been a problem ... in the end GCC had no choice to follow their lead any way with LTO, proving that the argument that it made proprietary backends too easy should have never been used.
Re:LLVM was offered for GCC-Next (Score:4, Informative)
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2004... [gnu.org]
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2007... [gnu.org]
Are we really supposed to be rooting for the people who will only share if they get something in return, and will intentionally make things difficult to try to get their way? That's hardly the noble cause they make it out to be. And then when LLVM tries to be as easy to use as possible and doesn't ask for anything in return, they belittle it.
An eloquent argument but... (Score:5, Interesting)
From the post:
Or they believe that the "inconvenience" outweighs the need for those measures -- e.g., the inconvenience is very large or the need is not as great as Stallman believes.
Most of Stallman's post is quite balanced and reasonable. However, suggesting that another group's thought process is defective ("do not recognize" or "do not care") merely because they consider other factors and reach different conclusions than yours is a bit of a cheap shot.
zero-sum? (Score:4, Insightful)
RMS's philosophy assumes a zero-sum combative environment for software: "free and uncapitalizable" vs "open-source and capitlistic". He's consistent and clear, but this zero-sum assumption is false. Closed-source innovations have cross-bred with open many times, either via concept or actual code contributions. The ecosystem mingles every time any coder merges their closed-source ideas with open or vice-versa. Freedom in this case lives at the meta level that allows individuals AND a market to thrive. We're not going back to an age where all the drawers of tapes are unlocked for everyone at all times, but where the concepts embedded in the tapes' content crossbreed and multiply. Freedom has thus encompassed RMS's idea (after all, GPLv3 is not prohibited) and that of a market-based economy. His stance that assumes zero-sum reveals a clear dislike for the existance of the market, which perhaps arose from a time when digital commerce could not be envisioned. However, digital-goods are indeed a very large market and that work to create such goods will come from anywhere, free, paid, donated and even (regrettably) stolen. It mirrors the real world, as it should.
Can't we all just get along? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stallman said,
as if that were a bad thing.
He's confusing the promotion of free software with opposition to proprietary software. Those are two different things. The former is a productive activity that helps me as a user. The latter is an uphill battle that doesn't even really need to be fought. The best way to defeat proprietary software is to provide a superior, free alternative.
I like to think of myself as one of the biggest Stallman fans out there. I think he is a visionary, and I totally agree with him that free software is important to a free society and the betterment of the human condition. But holding back from adopting a good compiler because someone proprietary vendor might also benefit sounds like cutting off our noses to spite our faces.
In fact, if, as Stallman says, "sharing with your neighbor" is an ethical imperative, then one could say he's applying that selectively. (I am aware of his argument why this is the right thing to do; I just don't accept it.)
GPL as transitional license (Score:4, Insightful)
When open-source was first taking off, the GPL was necessary because only a small group of die-hard believers thought it would work. Having the work "stolen" into a proprietary product that successfully hijacks the userbase was entirely possible, and so a protective license was necessary.
Now, open-source is common. Users are aware enough that it's nearly impossible to hijack a userbase - any good features added to a proprietary version will be quickly cloned in the open-source original, and few users distrust open-source software. Companies are rarely afraid to work with open-source projects or release their code, and many see it as an advantage.
The GPL (and similar copyleft licenses) protects the open-sourceness of the project, but it also limits its usability. BSD or similar licenses do not offer similar protections, but also do not have the restrictions. Now that open-source has cultural, not just legal, defenses, GPL is not necessary unless you consider the open-sourceness of the code to be more important than the usability of the code.
And so I think GPL is best treated as a transitional license. In areas of software where open-source dominates, it is no longer necessary. In areas where it faces strong opposition from proprietary software, it remains useful or even essential.
Can't say I disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)
Historically, BSD licensing has created some big problems, with companies taking software, adding major features, and then providing it as part of their own Unix without feeding the changes back into the central tree. It's arguable that overly-permissive licensing terms gave us the extremly divided and nasty Unix market of the 80s and 90s, and that the GPL provided a sort of herd immunity against massively differentiated forks by making it possible to get features back into the mainstream trees in a consistent and timely manner.
RMS has a distressing habit of being proven right, and I wouldn't discount him quite so easily.
Winning the Battle (Score:5, Interesting)
Fork it. (Score:5, Insightful)
If GPL is superior, do a GPLed fork of LLVM/clang and beat the BSD licensed version with their own code.
You should be able to grow faster.
You have access to their improvements, while they don't have access to yours.
But then you'd be doing what you criticize corporations for, what you fear being done to LLVM by corporations.
You obviously could, but it feels wrong to me. But if it's freedom you are protecting why does it feel wrong?
Re:Lincense wars in... (Score:5, Informative)
Many people started moving away from the GPL with version 3.
Re:Lincense wars in... (Score:5, Insightful)
...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:5, Insightful)
For someone who isn't interested in free software or open source, your approach works: go with the flow, everyone do what they want.
The result it that some software turns into a hand-out for companies that, in the long term, are trying to make free software disappear.
If someone wants to be able to more with free software, then there's a question of strategies for achieving this. The user gets the same freedoms from BSD and GPL, but GPL says anyone building on top of the software has to contribute their improvements to the community. Only fair really.
So, yeh, the two can coexist, but the GPL does a lot more to ensure that we have great free software in the future. If you think that's a good thing, then use the GPL.
P.S. everyone do what they want. (Score:4, Insightful)
P.S. I phrased this badly:
> go with the flow, everyone do what they want.
I'm in favour of people doing what they want. The approach I meant to criticise is "everyone do whatever and let's not discuss it, let's just see what happens".
Everyone can and will do what they want, but I'm in favour of thinking about the options. If you want more free software to exist, choosing GPL makes sense.
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:5, Interesting)
The user gets the same freedoms from BSD and GPL, but GPL says anyone building on top of the software has to contribute their improvements to the community. Only fair really.
Technically, that's not what the GPL says. It says you have to distribute the source (or make it available) to anyone you distribute your software (binaries) to. In practice, that usually means making the source code available to "the community", but it doesn't have to. If you're a company selling that software, you only have to give the source to your customers. Of course, they have no restriction on redistributing it, so it goes to the community from there, so it's a minor distinction.
I wonder what RMS would think of a more "business-friendly" license where a commercial entity selling software could take software that's publicly-available, modify it, and then distribute that to paying customers, but not back to the community, but where the license required them only to distribute the modified source code to those same customers, however the customers were not allowed to distribute it themselves. This would be good for customers since they'd have the source code available "just in case" (the vendor went under, or they wanted to make their own modifications for their own use), and the vendor would like this because they wouldn't be "giving the software away". The upstream sources wouldn't like it as much as truly Free distribution, but at least anyone who becomes a customer of that vendor isn't getting screwed over.
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:4, Informative)
I wonder what RMS would think of a more "business-friendly" license where a commercial entity selling software could take software that's publicly-available, modify it, and then distribute that to paying customers, but not back to the community, but where the license required them only to distribute the modified source code to those same customers, however the customers were not allowed to distribute it themselves.
RMS wouldn't like it. That's essentially what the most minimal definition of "Open Source" means -- Source access. When that company goes out of business you can't really outsource patches, you have to maintain it yourself which may be more expensive -- If you even can maintain it, the code may require a special compiler or the hardware could require code signing system that you don't have. Which is why the GPL exists as it does: To ensure that you will be able to use and improve the software you rely on even without the further input or permission of those who created it.
RMS doesn't do "Open Source Software" he does "Free Software" instead. The whole Free Software thing kicked off because he got a new OS, and his printer wouldn't work with it. He needed the driver source, and found another coder who had the same hardware and driver source, but they were required to sign a "business friendly" NDA such that that they could not pass on the code they received.
TL;DR: You don't have to "wonder what RMS would think", he created the GPL expressly to ensure customers had freedom from such "business friendly" (freedom limiting, sharing preventing) software. It's covered in his book: Free as in Freedom (2.0) [fsf.org]
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:5, Insightful)
> Because from what I've seen the two biggest users are Apple, who give back with projects like CUPS,
You mean that project that was fully formed and perfectly usable long before Apple decided to "buy" it.
If Apple did in fact actually improve CUPS, it's very non-obvious.
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, yeh, the two can coexist, but the GPL does a lot more to ensure that we have great free software in the future. If you think that's a good thing, then use the GPL.
I think that's a debatable point, and that neither side has the high ground.
The GPL argument is that anyone who produces a derivative work must contribute back to the project, and thus the GPL generates more contributors.
The BSD argument is that there will always be people who create a non-free option, and if that is done by extending open-source the community may get some, if not all benefit from them.
I tend to think the second argument is better. Relevant to this discussion, Apple has taken free software like LLVM and turned it into something they package up in proprietary form (Xcode). Sure, we don't have all of Xcode for free, but then that was never an option. Apple was going to make that proprietary no matter what. However, there were parts of it Apple saw value in having open source, and getting a larger community, and in not being the long term maintainer, so they had their engineers do work on it and contribute those parts back to the community. That's part of why LLVM is better than gcc today. If LLVM had not been under a BSD license they wouldn't have used GCC, it's corporate poison, they would have rather licensed Intel's C compiler or something and the community would have gotten absolutely nothing.
The GPL is all or nothing, and the GPL community often gets absolutely nothing by insisting on all.
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's part of why LLVM is better than gcc today.
THIS is one of the most interesting points in the comparison. Why is LLVM replacing GCC? Is it technically superior, is it because of licensing differences, etc? And if it's technically superior, why is that? Because there was less legacy, because the maintainers/developers were better/had fewer internal issues, or because the license encouraged *more* contribution?
Rather than Stallman and others whining about licensing, maybe they should analyze WHY it has become so popular. Ironically, RMS seems to have given up on all engineering rigor and decided legal and marketing issues are more important, which seems seems much more against open source principles than these licensing differences.
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone building on top of a BSD-licensed software project has the additional freedom to retain and not release changes they make to that software when distributing their own build. GPL advocates say that this is a freedom that people shouldn't have, in order for all players to be even.
Yes, this is exactly the issue. GPL isn't "more free" than BSD. Quite the opposite. GPL is far less free as it grants the users less freedoms.
The BSD approach is "Here is something nice I made - have it and do what you like, hope you have fun!"
The GPL approach is "Here is something nice I made - you can use it, but if you you have to let me play with you stuff. I don't care that your thing might be vastly better or more complicated than mine, if you're using my stuff you sure better make sure I can use everything you make."
Which is really more free?
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:4, Interesting)
I know it's bad form to follow up on my own post, but I forgot to mention the Linux Action Show. If you really want to understand rms and his stance on GPL, you really must watch this: http://lunduke.com/2012/03/11/... [lunduke.com] which links to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
Essentially, rms believes that anybody who makes money from "non-free" software is "evil". That is, writing software is fundamentally incompatible with earning a living. Listen from 57:45 if you don't believe me! He gets even more radical at 59:00. "If it's not free software, I don't think you're making a positive contribution to society."
And remember the whole while, he's advocating a "less free" license in GPL. He wants to restrict the freedom of other developers because anything they do that might not be free software isn't a valuable contribution to society.
So, a plea to all the GPL advocates. Is that really your stance? Is that really what you believe? Seriously consider the implications of holding a worldview where you believe that anyone whose talent is writing code shouldn't be able to make money from that but instead have to find some other job and "maybe" fit in writing free software into their life as a hobby. Is that seriously beneficial to the field of computer science? Well, hope you enjoy your job in McDonalds!
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not completely true... the GPL does not at all obligate you to make your changes available to the original developer. It only obligates people who distribute binaries based on your work to also distribute the source that accompanies those binaries. I am in no way obligated to distribute my new binary to the original developer and as such am not obligated to distribute the source (though anybody who I do distribute the binary to may request the source and provide it to the original developer).
GPL emphasizes the freedom of the next generations, where BSD emphasizes the protection of the first generation.
i.e. if I write GPL software and distribute it with the source, and somebody else takes that source and modifies it, and distributes it, then they have to provide the source and the right to modify it. So users two or three (or more) links down the chain have the same freedom as the original user.
if I write BSD software and distribute it with the source, and somebody else takes that source and modifies it, then they have no obligation to provide the source, and thus there is no necessary benefit to lower generations. The BSD offers them no such guaranteed benefit.
GPL sacrifices the freedom of the first generation to protect the freedom of the future generations.
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:5, Interesting)
>>The result it that some software turns into a hand-out for companies that, in the long term, are trying to make free software disappear.
>
> No company is trying to do that, especially not one that is relying on free software for their products.
Apple is.
Their current flagship platform is openly hostile to Free Software and even the concept of open systems where the end user has full control over the hardware.
Near as I can tell, Apple isn't doing anything to try to make Free software disappear. They are, however, creating many alternatives ever since GPLv3 made it unviable for them to continue to participate in that community as much. Even now, though, if you look at all the packages they use and contribute to as part of MacOS X (the core of which is all open source, although most of it isn't Free Software), there are many GPL packages among them: http://www.opensource.apple.co... [apple.com] . It does seem that with companies like Apple actively participating in Open Source but not as actively participating in Free Software, that to a certain degree it's proving many of the anti-GPL folks' points and probably really pissing off RMS.
Re:...but if you want free software to improve... (Score:4, Informative)
App store rules don't include any sort of restriction. Indeed there are many GPL apps on the Apple App Store.
The GPL on the other hand does make restrictions that make it difficult to put GPL software on Apple's app store. And indeed the biggest story on this was VLC, which was NOT removed by Apple, but removed by one of it's developers who believed it to be impossible to put it on the App Store because of it's GPL status. Yet look today and VLC is on the app store again.
RMS is vocally ANTI commercial software. Apple on the other hand actually release a lot of open source software themselves. Some of it even GPL.
It's a complete lie to say that Apple store TOS prohibits releasing software that is GPL. The only hostility here is from RMS and his accolytes. Thay are the ones who want it to be impossible to have GPL on the App Store. Explicitly so.
Re:Lincense wars in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then use only GPLed software on your computer.
This story is about Stallman complaining because other people don't agree with his vision. Too bad.
Re:Lincense wars in... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, then he'd want to use all BSD/public domain software. GPL software explicitly prohibits you from doing whatever you want with the source, you are required to give back if you distribute derivative works.
Agree about Stallman though - "Oh no, somebody is giving technically superior code with no restrictions to both us and our ideological competitors. The horror!". Yes, perhaps a legitimate tactical setback in terms of some sort of ideological "war", but if a compiler built within the self-promoting GPL ecosystem can't compete with the advances in an unrestricted BSD project then perhaps he should spend more time examining why that is and less time complaining about freely available superior products offering their advances to "the enemy" on equal terms.
Re: Lincense wars in... (Score:4, Informative)
Even windows wouldn't be here (or at least not on the Internet) if not for open source. BSD/SystemV is not just the base for OSX but also large parts of VMS and subsequently NT as well as the BSD TCP/IP stack and the POSIX layer within NT.
Re:Lincense wars in... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Lincense wars in... (Score:4, Informative)
Clang is slightly faster than GCC, when compiling at the same optimization level.
Clang is written in C++ and modular, and as result of this, it is more embeddable in third party projects and it can target multiple platforms with a single executable. Work is being done in GCC to address this but I'm talking about released code here.
But when we consider less "hip" features, GCC makes faster code (which is usually the foremost interest of a compiler's user). And GCC supports more target platforms. And GCC supports more language features (FORTRAN, OpenMP, VLAIS).
A GCC developer's benchmark [fedorapeople.org] about GCC's vs clang's speed of compilation and of the resulting code.
Re:Lincense wars - LLVM kills gcc then corps close (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes because some of the features in LLVM/CLANG are in direct conflict with design decisions made by RMS about GCC with regards to integration into other tools. This isn't a lack of ability option on the part of the GCC team, it is a lack of intent, or rather deliberate intent to NOT implement for religious reasons.
Re:Lincense wars in... (Score:5, Interesting)
The part of Software freedom, is using software to do things with it that the original author may not agree with.
The GPL 2 had enough loopholes in it to allow for companies to make money off of it, where they will normally contribute back. The GPL 3 put screws on the company, because in RMS land the only way you can make money off of software is the following...
1. Redistribution - this is a dying market as the need to ship and package distributions is reduced.
2. Consulting/Training services - this work just as long as your application is complex enough to need such. If you have an easy to use app who needs to hire a consultant to use it.
3. Maintenance/Support - This assumes your software is so mission critical that it will need maintenance and support.
4. Fame - Your project is so popular you are famous for making it.
5. Cross License - You have an other license for your benefit.
Now there are projects that are free for just being free, built as a hobby, or a side affect of an other project you are working on. Those are all fine and good, however those are difficult to keep up to date.
Now the BSD is even more open initially, you as the developer just kinda puts it out there. And yes companies and take and profit from your work... However they become dependent on it and it is their best interests to keep the project running, and will work with the main group to keep it things up to date.
Re: (Score:3)
No, you can't do that. And that's not what the GPL3 protects against either, because you can't do that.
Re:Lincense wars in... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, there is: Patent law.
It's about tactics: GPL helps free software (Score:5, Informative)
Background reading:
BSD, LGPL, and GPL are all free software licences. The user gets the same four freedoms in each case (use, study, modify, redistribute). But, using the BSD licence (or the LGPL) takes away an incentive to contribute to the free software project.
GCC's technical advances create a big incentive for developers who are interested in compilers, and for companies with a commercial interest in a good compiler existing for their platform, to contribut to GCC - helping free software whether that's their priority or not. With a BSD-licence project, developers can choose to ignore GCC and fork LLVM instead, so neither GCC nor LLVM benefits.
LLVM weakens GCC's ability to attract free software contributors. That's why Apple funds LLVM.
It's not difficult to see which approach works best: Which OS has more contributors, *BSD or GNU/Linux?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So are you saying that BSD gets less contributions because of its licence and that GPL'ed software gets more?
But then LLVM would receive less contributions and GCC would reign supreme.
Re:It's about tactics: GPL helps free software (Score:5, Insightful)
> then LLVM would receive less contributions and GCC would reign supreme.
Except that Apple is funding LLVM. It suits their agenda, and their goal isn't to give a long and fruitful life to free software.
Supporters and leachers ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that Apple is funding LLVM.
Sort of undermine's Stallman's argument about corporations not supporting the community. There are supporters and there are leachers, both on the individual and the corporate side.
It suits their agenda, and their goal isn't to give a long and fruitful life to free software.
Nor is it their goal to destroy free software. They have supported many free software projects for many years. Yes those projects benefit them, so what? All that matters is if they contribute or if they leach. They seem to contribute.
LLVM funding model doesn't scale (Score:4, Insightful)
> undermine's Stallman's argument about corporations not supporting
The LLVM model for attracting funding doesn't scale, and it defeats itself in the long term.
LLVM are only getting funding because Apple wants to undermine GCC. Most projects can't be used in that way, so they can't be of any interest to the Apple category of funders. And Apple's interest in funding the free parts of LLVM will dry up as soon as they (if they ever) achieve the goal of undermining GCC. The LLVM licence allows Apple to switch to a proprietary approach whenever they want. (Although, in reality, they'll continue to contribute the non-flashy bits of code - the stuff they want other people to maintain for them.)
Re:LLVM funding model doesn't scale (Score:5, Insightful)
LLVM are only getting funding because Apple wants to undermine GCC.
You need a reality check badly. Apple doesn't give a shit about GCC, regardless of what your self-centered mind might think. They want a compiler that's good for their platform and lets them package it into Xcode. GCC would make this impossible. LLVM makes this possible. That's it. Perhaps if people like you didn't always have this absurd notion that corporations are specifically out to get you (instead of merely focusing on growing their business), you wouldn't be stuck as you are with many GPL projects withering or changing licenses.
Linux is corporate developed ... (Score:5, Insightful)
But LLVM still gets the resources to make free software as a result. Does it matter if there's corporate support or the code is programmed by altruistic (and either poor or overworked) individuals whose souls are not so incumbered by finances?
Linux is essentially developed by corporate sponsored developers, not the individual hobbyists of old. Last I heard the volunteers accounted for about 16% of Linux contributions, the rest coming from employees of one company or another (Red Hat, Intel, IBM, etc). With this sponsorship comes a degree of control, direction. There really is little difference between corporate supported GPL-based projects and corporate supported BSD-based projects. Corporation provide direction to both, the source code is available in both.
It's about tactics: GPL helps free software (Score:3, Interesting)
Jesus, that's crazy talk. Apple's interest in LLVM isn't some malicious scheme to undermine GCC. Apple used to support and use GCC, but couldn't upgrade because of the switch to GPLv3, so they decided to invest in LLVM.
A garden of pure ideology. (Score:5, Insightful)
FSF doesn't have just an ideology of helping free software, it has an ideology of hurting proprietary software.
Clang and LLVM are technically superior because they've been heavily modularized. FSF actively didn't want to do this with GCC and made it difficult because they wanted to make it difficult for GCC to be used with external tools, which hypothetically, could have been non-free software.
Yes, the LLVM license & design, in contrast to GCC, permits Apple to integrate it with proprietary Xcode, but it also aids tools development from academics and free software writers.
The facts are that GCC was there first, and precisely because of the political attitude of FSF which resulted in technical kneecaps flowing from that, other parties spend lots of money to develop a technically superior, and politically superior product. And today, a proprietary company with enormous bags of money is paying highly skilled people to develop slightly-less free open-source software.
FSF and GCC had its purpose and ideology exposed to the world, a significant community, and it lost. With a more compromising attitude FSF would have found Apple contributing significant resources to GCC--after all it was the original part of NextSTEP and early MacOS development.
I think GCC is very impressive and have used it for decades. Soon enough, though the future will be LLVM.
Re:It's about tactics: GPL helps free software (Score:4, Interesting)
Background reading:
BSD, LGPL, and GPL are all free software licences. The user gets the same four freedoms in each case (use, study, modify, redistribute). But, using the BSD licence (or the LGPL) takes away an incentive to contribute to the free software project.
GCC's technical advances create a big incentive for developers who are interested in compilers, and for companies with a commercial interest in a good compiler existing for their platform, to contribut to GCC - helping free software whether that's their priority or not. With a BSD-licence project, developers can choose to ignore GCC and fork LLVM instead, so neither GCC nor LLVM benefits.
LLVM weakens GCC's ability to attract free software contributors. That's why Apple funds LLVM.
It's not difficult to see which approach works best: Which OS has more contributors, *BSD or GNU/Linux?
I work in a commercial software development company. We use OSS components, and we contribute back to the projects. They are all BSD/Apache variants. Our lawyers have forbidden us to touch anything GPL under any circumstances. It isn't as simple as many here claim that it is about whether we want to be contributors or freeloaders. We do contribute back in the OSS projects we use. But GPL is viral, and can very easily infect and "liberate" proprietary IP that is part of the solution. That is a no go. As for "which OS has more contributors", which web server has more contributors? :)
Re:It's about tactics: GPL helps free software (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's about tactics: GPL helps free software (Score:5, Insightful)
But, using the BSD licence (or the LGPL) takes away an incentive to contribute to the free software project.
Unfortunately, this ignores the distinction between "tactical" and "strategic", and between "foundation" and "application".
Let's start with "tactical" vs. "strategic":
If a set of code based on BSD licensed software is merely tactical, then you are vastly better off offloading the ongoing support for that to the larger community, and are therefore incentivized to contribute your changes back to the community. If a set of code based on BSD licensed software is strategic, however, then you are better off keeping it proprietary, since it represents the value your business brings to the market. By keeping it proprietary, you leverage your ability to produce something which is either difficult or nigh impossible for a competitor to duplicate in order to keep yourself in business.
In the strategic case, however, you are still incentivized to contribute code back.
A strategic advantage may not, and probably will not, last long term. At that point it becomes tactical, and you move on. But being tactical, you contribute it back. You may in fact do that when the code is in the process of converting from strategic to tactical, to avoid an upstart filling that ecological niche, and making it more difficult for you to maintain your code going forward. This is what we did when we contributed the Soft Updates code back to FreeBSD.
Another reason to contribute back to a project when you are utilizing strategic code is to establish well defined interfaces between the tactical code in the Open Source project, and your strategic code that you maintain internally. For this to work out, the interfaces you design, and the boundaries between the code, has to be useful to others, or the contributions will not be adopted by the project. Again, you are incentivized to let parts of the strategic code out in order to support reduced ongoing maintenance of the strategic code you keep proprietary.
Moving on to "foundation" vs. "application":
Why did TCP/IP win? I was at Novell at the time during which the protocol basis for the commercial Internet was being decided. Novell was attempting to swing a deal with AT&T to get them to deploy a commercial network topology based on SPX/IPX; at the same time, Microsoft was attempting to get AT&T and Sprint, and whoever else they could get on board, to deploy a commercial network based on NetBIOS/NetBEUI.
Although TCP/IP was vastly superior, despite its known flaws due to both the three way handshake and the socket shutdown mechanism, it was a close race: technical superiority has often lost out in the market to technically inferior technology with a large marketing budget and proprietary leverage for the purpose of profit. So why did it win? It won because of the BSD license: anyone could take the code and stuff it into a networking product or end node client or server system on a royalty free basis, and they could do it using the same code that their competitors were using.
TCP/IP is a foundational technology. It has importance not because of its utility in and of itself, it has importance because of the ability to build interesting and useful application code edifices on top of the foundation it provides. It isn't itself an application.
Applications, on the other hand, until there is an Open Source equivalent, under whatever license, are not foundational, they have value unique unto themselves. This is why Photoshop and Microsoft Office haven't been displaced, and still continue to sell.
The mistake RMS is making here is considering a compiler as an application. A compiler is not an application, it is a foundation; further, it's not strategic, it's tactical. There's no reason to try and force the release of strategic or application code through the auspices of a license, because there isn't any.
And this is why companies are investing into LLVM rather than GCC: the bag
Re: (Score:3)
In practice, not hypothetical theory, what has happened? The more modular nature of LLVM and license which was attractive to Apple for its proprietary needs has also attracted contributors to LLVM, which hasn't been significantly forked. Apple's contribution plus other contributors plus LLVM's technology is attractive and constructive.
NOW he realizes this? (Score:5, Insightful)
LLVM/Clang has existed for a while now, and one of the primary motivations behind it was the license, particularly w/ GCC going GPLv3. Suddenly, RMS one day wakes up and realizes that it's not copyleft? That's the very idea!
I am not an Apple fan, but despite his rants, Apple has done a lot for LLVM/Clang, which I daresay wouldn't be where it is were it not for Apple and other proprietary vendors feeding back their changes upstream, despite not having to.
Re: (Score:3)
They may not have to, but most proprietary vendors see that there's benefit to contributing their changes rather than forking. Incorporating new changes from the community into your fork is a huge pain in the ass. If you're actually selling the fork as an end product, maybe it's worth it. For Apple with a compiler? Not a chance.
Re:NOW he realizes this? (Score:5, Insightful)
To clarify, Apple is the upstream here. They created clang themselves, and they never needed to even launch it as an open source project. They did anyway, because there are huge and tangible benefits to doing so, and everybody gains from it.
Seems to me RMS does not actually believe that an open development model is better, since he feels the need to force people into it.
Re:Lincense wars in... (Score:4, Insightful)
One one side of the battle is RMS, on the other side is nobody.
Everybody else just stayed home and kept coding because none of them really care about this battle.
Re: Admitting LLVM's technical superiority? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes and no. LLVM is not as good at most things but RMS and everyone else can see that LLVM has a superior overall design, ala structure, extensibility, readabiliy, etc. He sees the writing on the wall.
Folks here demonize RMS as being blinded by ideology, but the man is briliant and sees what is real.
GCC isn't an IDE, Codebench source is free (Score:5, Insightful)
> Except for the multiple paid versions of GCC compilers out there:
> http://www.mentor.com/embedded... [mentor.com]
The product you linked to, Codebench lite, is neither proprietary, nor paid.
It's simply NOT a "paid version of GCC compiler", because it's not something you pay for - it's free and you can download the source.
That same company ALSO sells support services and an IDE. They don't sell a compiler.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
Are you claiming that SNC is a GCC derivative? Citation? The wikipedia article mentions that they ship their compiler, which can be used INSTEAD OF the gcc-dereived compiler provided by the hardware manufacturer.
Re:More than one type of "freedom" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More than one type of "freedom" (Score:4, Informative)
Dude, RMS has his issues, but comparing him to Richard Marx? Harsh.
Indeed. [salon.com] What an asshole.
Re:More than one type of "freedom" (Score:5, Insightful)
Because his goal is to ensure that no one finds themselves in a position where they're using a binary without sources. Someone in that position is not free, and the GPL is his tool to ensure that doesn't happen.
Re:More than one type of "freedom" (Score:5, Informative)
It means that they're free to go to someone who can do something with it, and have them work their magic. It ensures that there are always options.
Re:More than one type of "freedom" (Score:5, Informative)
With GPLed software, they're free to do go anybody who can do something about it. With propriety software, there was only one place to go, and if they say "no" or they screw it up then you're fucked. Personally I wouldn't call those two situations exactly the same.
Re:More than one type of "freedom" (Score:4, Insightful)
Argument from apathy?
How so? I would argue that this drives home the point for Stallman that GCC needs to be better.
Re:Linux keeps the GPL alive. (Score:4, Insightful)