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LLVM & GCC Compiler Developers To Begin Collaborating
An anonymous reader writes "While RMS is opposed to LLVM over its BSD-like license rather than the GPL, LLVM/Clang and GCC developers have agreed to try to start cooperating in an "open compiler initiative" to jointly tackle common issues that plague both compilers and issues that can be better served by working together rather than creating fragmentation between the two popular open-source compilers."
http://www.altslashdot.org/
in case y'all didn't know.
#F...BETA
I'm not sure how GCC could benefit from this.
While theoretically GPL could subsume BSD code produced from the collaboration, I reckon it's more likely that brains are going to migrate rather than code. And I don't see those working on LLVM (for commercial interest) migrating to GCC.
If I were RMS I'd be worried.
The GPL is not for everyone or every company, get over it.
The BSD[MIT/APACHE/ZLIB] licence is the only real free open source license. In a perfect world we wouldn't need licences at all and everyone wouldn't have a hissyfit every time someone borrowed code from someone.
I bet this works great for the GCC devs.
Unless they're going to work under the BSD license, LLVM will be screwed over because they aren't going to include GPL code into LLVM.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
[quote]... in a perfect world ... [/quote] ;)
And that's exatly why we need GPL
Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.
If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.
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Alternative Slashdot: http://altslashdot.org (thanks Okian Warrior (537106))
What do you think the purpose of copyleft (of which GPL is just a manifestation) was? The problems it adressed persist.
Now let me address the "freedoms" you're defending. There's always the quote "your freedom to wave your fist ends where my nose begins", but I'm not going to argue that in this case - let's assume users don't have freedoms like FSF asserts. Let's listen to you and focus on corporate freedoms:
You're saying people should have the "freedom" to leech, because this technically means the least amount of restrictions on a code. But in fact, what you're really defending is the right of authors of derivatives to restrict what their users can do. And you know what? I agree that they have that freedom: They built it, they should be able to do with it whatever they want. But the dissonance in your opinion is this: The author of the original piece of code which they built on also has the same right! So if you're going to defend people who impose restrictions that hurt end-users, why attack those that use the same right in the purpose of maximizing the freedoms of those same end-users?
So there are restrictions in both stories, just that BSD is asocial and GPL isn't: BSD says "do what thou wilt" and that inevitably favors the bully. Mind you, the bully (=the warlord in the case of anarchy) is going to impose his own rules. GPL says instead: Fair play rules are valid for everyone.
Upon loading the article page I was confronted with some spam video that started playing and blasting audio unrequested. Is this the next shoe to drop? First beta, next auto playing video ads? I've never disabled ads on slashdot and I disable my adblocker BECAUSE the ads haven't been annoying.
What is going on at slashdot?!?!
Having read TFA, this collaboration appears to be partly about build compatibility. So far, it sounds like LLVM/Clang has been imitating GCC options. But what happens when one or the other of them adds a new option or feature? That might break builds designed for the other one. So, it sounds like the two groups would like to start communicating and coordinating so that both systems can be compatible at a build level in the future. Implicit in this is that both would continue to exist as independent entities and that build compatibility would be a primary goal for both. Perhaps some deeper form of technical collaboration might even be possible in the future.
Then again, I may have that all wrong. I know nothing about it except what I learned from reading TFA. If that causes a problem, I'll try not to do it again.
RMS is like a typecast actor. He has his role, and plays it unswervingly.
However, if there are ways to help out the studio, even if he's not in the film, what's the issue?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Why does the link to the last Slashdot story link to beta.slashdot.org?
Here's a better link:
http://fuckbeta.slashdot.org/s...
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Yep. After a decade of the same argument appearing time after time on this site, your post will finally set it, at least for the users who stay on.
RMS has been one of the most important men of the last 50 years or so.
His contribution to society is immense.
We need more like him to fight for our freedom.
Just imagine a world with only proprietary software.
Locked into golden prisons.
No thanks.
To play devil's advocate here: If a company restricts my freedom to use software how I see fit, I can choose not to use that company's product. If an individual restricts my freedom to use software how I see fit (for example, by saying that I can't sell a derivative work without also maintaining a method by which the source code of the derivative can be distributed), I can choose not to use that individual's code.
Just as one might discourage NVidia from distributing nonsensically-closed-source drivers, one might discourage RMS from distributing nonsensically-limited-in-intent source code.
And to take off my Devil's Advocate hat and stick on some actual horns:
Remember that the GPL doesn't just say you need to distribute the source code of derivative works. It also has the ramification that everyone else you collaborate with needs to be using GPL-compatible code. This is fine for individuals, but for absolutely any business, this is a nightmare to manage. Using a third-party library? You need to be sure it's GPL compliant, or you will be tainted. Using outsourced developers? Are you sure they understand the GPL and everything it implies? You aren't, so you can't actually trust them to touch anything you may have wanted to release under GPL.
What it comes down to is this: GPL isn't Viral, but non-GPL code is. It will get into your codebase, and spread around, and unlike GPL, there is no simple remedy of releasing the source-code or removing functionality.
The result is that it's far easier, and far less-risky, to either: 1) Avoid GPL code, or 2) [what actually happens] keep a very broad definition of what doesn't count as "distribution". Make sure everyone other than the community which could actually benefit (and therefore which might complain that certain parts are not distributed) will get a copy. Use GPL code "internally", but never give back your changes, at all, even a little. Because that would just open you up to liability.
I'm not sure how GCC could benefit from this.
You are not reading history.
GCC moves too damn slow and doesn't include features that developers (and more importantly: the companies which pay developers) want. These days, that includes the changes between the GPLv2 and GPLv3 not being wanted by the people who pay the bills.
GCC was more or less started in 1984: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnup...
GCC was almost replaced by the EGCS fork in 1997, and it took two years before RMS finally gave up on the idea of having the ultimate editorial control over the language implementation, and "blessed" EGCS as the replacement for GCC. When he did that, he gave up on limiting the OSs that the compiler worked on, and limiting the inclusion of things like #pragma (which used to exec "nethack" because RMS didn't like it), and some of the language front ends that are now included, like g77, which RMS didn't want.
GCC is on the verge of being marginalized again by LLVM; all the sexy compiler work is happening in LLVM, all the bright young minds in the compiler world are going to LLVM because it's a lot easier to make a front end for a new language or a back end for a different processor or embedded controller or virtual machine. LLVM is the "go-to" compiler for academic projects involving compiler research.
It makes sense; GCC: 1984; +15 years = EGCS: 1999; +15 years = ????: 2014.
RMS' recent appeal *might* be able to attract a bunch of new ideologues to the GCC project, and have them forsake LLVM work, but more likely course and project requirements for a degree, and after that, an employer, probably mean that LLVM is going to remain the "go-to" compiler for the new blood.
The idea that GCC can leverage some of the new blood by making it easier for them to work with code in both contexts, rather than leaving GCC in the ashbin of history, is about the *only* way to give GCC the transfusion of new blood it's going to need to survive another 15 years.
It also couldn't hurt to expand the number of (or replace) members of the "GCC steering committee" so that GCC can get a little more forward momentum. You can get forward momentum one of two ways: (1) more specific impulse, or (2) take off the parking brake.
Phoronix is a troll infested shithole pushing click bait. Do not click that link.
Real story: Some guy says "Wouldn't it be nice if ...". Discussion ensues. Mostly "no".
By your logic the BSD license encourages tyranny when compared to the public domain.
So far you have only proven that you can add and subtract the number 1.
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Reading through the comments on the Phoronix website, there seem to be people who really think that Richard Stallman is Jesus.
And if you read through the comments on any Slashdot article about RMS or the GPL, you'll find plenty of people who think he's the Anti-Christ, so it all balances out.
As long as you can, my friend.
Good move.
While forking is a necessary fact to develop a new idea (even into the original community), merging (at lead idea) is even more necessary long term consequence to avoid fragmentation. The most dangerous thing for open source communities is to start to see others projects and communities as futile and without interesting for learning something.
Desktop related projects should really start to go into that direction now.
While I do agree with Stallman over them using a BSD-3 like license. I do like LLVM and Clang. And working together will benefit both LLVM/Clang and GCC which is a good thing.
while
RMS has been one of the most important men of the last 50 years or so.
To your chagrin, he'll probably be written up in the history books alongside folks like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, if at all. Then again, since any brief history of the automobile seems to unfairly mention only Henry Ford, Bill Gates will probably be the figure that folks eventually read about in the one-page version.
His contribution to society is immense.
Nearly as immense as his girth.
We need more like him to fight for our freedom.
It fascinates me that anybody thinks the ability to modify software has anything at all to do with "freedom". Even more fascinating is that any significant number of people do.
Just imagine a world with only proprietary software.
Locked into golden prisons.
No thanks.
If software "freedom" is so important, why would you assume that RMS is the one-and-only person who could ever have delivered it to you? Don't you think someone else could have come up with something so significant (to you, at least)? Likewise, we would never have physics without Newton, and we would never have light bulbs without Thomas Edison. Especially florescent and LED light bulbs.
I agree with your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. However I am concerned that you will sell your newsletter to Dice who will then write its value down to zero.
Sorry, I just realized that I put RMS in the same category as Newton and Edison. My bad.
This is one of the stupidest things i've read this week.
Except that you did it wrong.
BSD gives the author freedom, but screws the user. (1-1=0)
GP gives the author freedom, and preserves it for the user also. (1+1=2)
Really, this is simple math, there is no excuse for such a fundamental mistake.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
So make sure to be overly complex and opaque so your software needs support.
Why oh why are the shills always AC? They are giving AC a bad image.
Yep...another bad AC shill. Tim is that you?
It takes an extremist to shift the Overton window.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
There, FTFY. HAND.
I must be seeing things, how exactly does the GPL grant the author the same freedom as BSD or any similar license?
Also it's quite clear that everyone here is just talking about how the licenses are on paper, since otherwise every single code with BSD License in it that has contributors would be dead and forgot because "no one is forced to contribute back".
Hear-hear! For far too long RMS has let his ideology get in the way of true progress and cooperation, not to mention his ego...witness the fight over calling it "GNU/Linux" because he wanted recognition and attention.
Let's watch the monkey dance
Anti-intellectualism
Make fun of the south of France
Anti-intellectualism
Anti-anti-anti-anti-anti-intellectualism!
Yup, Stallman is another bitch ass jew trying to undermine goy owned software businesses. Google pulls the same shit.
He played an important part in the history of open source, but the movement is well-enough established that ideological purity is no longer necessary.
All I know is the GPL says I must live in a cardboard box and feed my kids from a dumpster.
You stumbled upon some truth. You did some thinking and came to a new realization. The only question remaining is, do you have the ability to learn from this, or will you choose to remain ignorant in order to protect the insane idea that you already knew everything before?
You can't be serious. BSD license is fine for people who largely don't care if their code is forked, patched, and closed, then used to compete against the original author or the community at large. While this gives the person doing this more freedom initially, it has the potential to deny the relevance of, and long term interest in, the original open project in the future. The end result is one less open source project in the market. This attack vector, used by aggressive vendors who want to kill open competition, is what the GPL was intended to prevent. In one sense BSD is one step closer to public domain than GPL, but it doesn't protect the community relevance, market value, and continued program source access, which is a loss of freedom for everyone else.
The GPL prevents this by providing legal guarantees for the freedom to tinker with that program indefinitely. The code and any modifications to it remain available to anyone because those who publicly distribute changed binaries must also publicly distribute source patches. With proprietary licenses you pay money for binaries (source, sometimes). With GPL code, your 'payment' for using it is giving any user the code you've added (if any) when requested. There's nothing viral or damaging about any of this because the answer is the same: if you don't like the license, ask the authors if they are willing to give you an alternative (since they still own the copyright), or don't use the code. If it's a library under LGPL then you can dynamically link against it without sharing the code that links to it. Most GPL libraries are LGPL now, so that's not an issue either.
The GCC guys have made it clear that programs compiled with gcc do not have to be GPL, and it's used in countless projects, both proprietary and OSS, for over two decades. I doubt it's going anywhere anytime soon.
I choose to remain ignorant, but only so I may bask in the glory of your reflected brilliance. For that great pleasure, I'll even endure thy deep condescension, which is the least I deserve at thy footsteps. After all, it is for my own good. Show me the way, though I am deeply unworthy. Though I endeavor to travel the path enlightenment, I know that I shall forever remain ignorant unlike thee, O Great Buddha.
First off the author always has the freedom to do whatever they want (assuming they haven't transferred copyright to someone else), the license only applies to *other* people. If you're the author of a derivative work and feel you should get to claim credit for the whole of "your" work, then by all means feel free to replicate the no doubt trivial amount of labor put into all those libraries you used.
BSD grants essentially unlimited freedom to developers directly downstream, but makes no attempt to preserve those freedoms for anyone further downstream.
GPL grants somewhat restricted freedoms to downstream developers, but in doing so they ensure that everyone further downstream continues to get the same freedoms.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
True enough, but there seems to be little controversy over his personal hygiene. Or lack thereof.
anonymous cowards are boring.
Except that you did it wrong.
BSD gives the author freedom, but screws the user. (1-1=0)
GP gives the author freedom, and preserves it for the user also. (1+1=2)
Really, this is simple math, there is no excuse for such a fundamental mistake.
Unless I ignore the Gnu implementation because of my commercial interests so the user never sees an implementation.
So we go back to Gnu = 0.
Seriously. I've seen projects and implementations totally scuttled over GPL. We would have LOVED to support the standard and commit code back, but the restrictions on our own code were unsustainable. So we went with BSD alternatives instead.
just that BSD is asocial and GPL isn't: BSD says "do what thou wilt" and that inevitably favors the bully. Mind you, the bully (=the warlord in the case of anarchy) is going to impose his own rules. GPL says instead: Fair play rules are valid for everyone.
Have to take issue with this. You make a fair point, but it is full of hyperbole and only half the story.
What do you think legal systems are if not asocial warlords and bullies who impose their own rules on the populace, only for their own gain?
If you know anything about governments, they inevitably favor the bully as well, that is the nature of them.
Two sides of the same coin.
Mind you, the warlord bully has branded things that benefit him "legal" and things that don't benefit the state "illegal" but that is just marketing; "legal" just means "backed by guns and money" so in either case it is bowing down to a warlord and hoping they keep things "fair" for everyone.
GPL says instead: Fair play rules are valid for everyone.
Devil's advocate: BSD leaves you alone to protect yourself and defend your turf how you like, GPL relies on empowering an existing bully under the theory that will stop other bullies, and that empowering the "legal" bully is a lesser evil.
Rhetorical question: What do you call an infinite number of arbitrary legal systems, always at war with each other, spying on each other endlessly, if not complete and utter anarchy?
Mind you, the bully (=the warlord in the case of anarchy) is going to impose his own rules. GPL says instead: Fair play rules are valid for everyone.
Should also mention that not everywhere cares about copyright, so "valid for everyone" is a myth and doesn't mean anything outside the sphere of "countries that happen to honor such things at this arbitrary point in time, which can change at a whim."
The only way to impose the GPL everywhere is to perpetually have a legal system that is universally recognized, which would imply a system that destroys or envelops all other systems. This is no different than imposing copyright everywhere, so the GPL is not unique in that regard.
Good or bad I will not say, but their is a certain amount of destruction involved, people aren't going to just give up their culture and history and way of life without a fight.
"Fair play rules are valid for everyone" seems like you left out quite a few people that just didn't make your list of people that matter I guess, because they live differently than you do or were born somewhere else.
That's odd, the GPL tells me pretty plainly that I get to have a nice flat, eat, and make my child-support payments, all while promoting freedom.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
> The author of the original piece of code which they built on also has the same right!
Fuck's sake.
1) He can have that right if he chooses to exercise that right. He can also have the right not to exercise it.
2) How long would this right continue? Perpetual copyright in a hash chain of derivative works?
Yes. I used to read that Edison 'invented' the light bulb and similar crapola when I was a kid. In fact this view was expounded in US TV kid shows. Heck if you listened to what was said it was like he had invented every single application of electricity developed in the XIXth century. Then I learned better. Then again they also used to say in the same TV shows that Columbus 'proved' the Earth was round and that people back then used to universally think the Earth was flat. Both of which is BS. Eratosthenes is turning in his grave now.
There's nothing viral or damaging about any of this because the answer is the same: if you don't like the license, ask the authors if they are willing to give you an alternative (since they still own the copyright), or don't use the code.
Mod this up; this is the same BSD or GPL or any other license.
In addition, an author who fully owns code (say they wrote it themselves) can release it under the GPL, but still have their private version going, or release the original code under any other license they want (without any contributions that were contributed to the GPL version of course).
GPL doesn't stop someone from keeping changes to themselves. It stops the GPL version of some codebase from disappearing, but there is no requirement or guarantee that the GPL is the original version and not just one version of the code that was licensed GPL while the original author also licensed (or not) the original code other ways.
GPL stops upstream *from the GPL version* from disappearing, but that is not necessarily the original upstream, nor is it necessarily the only licensed version of some code. It is just the GPL version.
Too much freedom gives a select few the ability to take away freedom from others...
The GPL works much like society, you sacrifice some freedom in order to ensure a reasonable level for everyone.
Without laws and someone to enforce them, people would be free to torture, murder and enslave each other, so while you'd have more freedom without laws it wouldn't last very long.
BSD code works much the same way, you have more freedom with the initial version but there's nothing to stop future versions offering you no freedom whatsoever.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Thank God not everyone think like RMS... Better open source compilers that can work together better too is nothing if not beneficial to all open source software in future.
You are assuming everyone considers those four points to all have an equal value. - for example, is the GPLs "gives the author freedom" actually equal to the BSDLs "give the author freedom"? Not really, but yet you equate them....
So much wrong with your "simple math".
Now I understand the fear about the GPL being contagious. People just fear that he didn't wash his hands before writing it, and therefore it is full of pathogens! ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
If only there was a system for measuring how much people are willing to give for what they give up or for they create... some token maybe that would the exchange countable and enumerable... so that all these "feed good" philosophies would not be based on what one person thinks the exchange rate should be for ideas, but on what all participants think the exchange rate should be for ideas.... some universal enumerative token... nah, can't happen.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I've read many Edison biographies over the years, and it's true that the things he gets full credit for had some roots in work others were doing. I know of two exceptions: the phonograph and the carbon microphone (for telephones). Both were completely original and were important innovations.
In the case of RMS, it's striking that the also has done very little original work. In fact, the whole basis of the GNU was to replicate UNIX. Now that's something to be proud of - especially when the hardest part of imitating UNIX, the kernel, was done by a kid from Finland. The only truly original major thing RMS has ever done that I'm aware of is create the GPL. That may explain why he now devotes all his energy to that single idea. Either that, or he truly believes in it. The most successful hucksters always believe in their own snake oil.
Although the GPL is original, I agree with the AC above that "free software" either isn't all that significant, or if it is, would have been invented by somebody else. ("Necessity is the mother of invention.) And even though the phonograph was original to Edison, it's hard to imagine that we would not have sound recording today if he had never been born.
I am not actually doing that, no.
For instance 'gives the author freedom' was simply taking what the poster I replied to had conceded and running with it. My contribution was not the original meme, simply reshaping it to a more appropriate shape with a bit of tongue in the cheek.
Neither license actually gives the author freedom. The license is not for the author. A license amounts to a covenant not to sue from the author - who needs mental, not legal, help if he tries to sue himself.
The BSD license gives your immediate downstream maximum freedom, including the ability to cut off freedom, refuse to offer it, to their own downstream.
The GPL license gives immediate downstream nearly the same thing, minus only the ability to cut off the freedom of their downstream.
There's very little more to it.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I like the way you said that. That was funny.
Thank you Slashdot, I love the beta ! Good work !
Just FYI, angry old slashdotters, the old site was not compatible with browsers found on modern OS such as Android and iOS, in particular the slider used to filter comments. Thank you again. No need to spend time developing comments, everything is just there, ready to be read.
Unfortunately, GNU removal is NOT covered by obamacare.
Good idea, pseudo-Dr. Stallman notwithstanding.
We would have LOVED to support the standard and commit code back, but the restrictions on our own code were unsustainable
In other words, your project could not be viable without oppressing your users. Sounds like good riddance.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
so you had bad teachers. serious history books correctly assert Edison developed the first *commercially viable incandescent light*
Edison himself did invent some very useful things, directed others to refine other things, made yet other inventions a commercial success. maybe you should read about him
And fundamentalism like this is why GPL 3 is so hated in the corporate world.
You effectively say "Our way or the highway." Well, the money is flowing along that highway. Hope you are willing to financially wither for your unrealistic and unsustainable ideals.
Well, the money is flowing along that highway. Hope you are willing to financially wither for your unrealistic and unsustainable ideals.
You could have said the same thing about slavery, child labor, anything OSHA regulates, etc. What's good for corporations is not the same as what's good for people.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
RMS has been one of the most important men of the last 50 years or so.
lol wow. I hope you mean in Computer Science, because if you mean in all disciplines, political, etc, you are bloody nuts mate.
BSD gives the author freedom, but screws the user. (1-1=0)
Except the BSD license doesn't screw the user, other users screw other users.
Blaming others for your shortcomings is immature.
Good people do not need laws to do the right thing, bad folks just find ways around them.
Yes. Because Joseph Swan didn't sell his bulbs to anyone. Not.
just wondering which compiler does rhe NSA use?
You mean, red GNU agitators will put down their 500+ clause license and BSD free-love hippies will put down their "not invented here" mindset and both fight like civilized men about relevant stuff like endianness?
Calling RMS an "important man" is just a good way to communicate succintly to the average Joe that he's a big jerk.
BSD gives the author freedom, but screws the user. (1-1=0)
If I use a BSD-licensed program how does that "screw the user"?
BSD code works much the same way, you have more freedom with the initial version but there's nothing to stop future versions offering you no freedom whatsoever.
So just use the original version or fork that original version and continue development. The BSD license does not force you to contribute everything you do back (it is your choice what and how much you contribute back), and really that's the way it should be IMHO, it should be about people collaborating because they see a benefit in doing it, not because they are forced to do it. Permissive licenses allow those who may not share the same ideology in its entirety to collaborate to at least some degree whereas restrictive licenses force their ideology and an exclusion policy like that is not productive.
RMS himself said the reason he does not like LLVM is because "all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us", if you don't accept his ideology in its entirety he won't help you, that is just religious extremism. It allows free and proprietary vendors to work together and RMS is directly opposed to that collaboration.
...also don't resort to argumentum ad absurdum by comparing the freedom to distribute source code to the freedom to torture and murder people, that's just silliness.
GPL is the muslim extremist, the intolerant one whom you cannot marry unless you abandon your own beliefs and give over completely to that religion. BSD/Apache is the tolerant religion (and many, perhaps even most, muslims themselves fall into this category) that allows interfaith marriage where both parties can accept eachother's differences in belief system.
This attack vector, used by aggressive vendors who want to kill open competition, is what the GPL was intended to prevent.
Which "aggressive vendors" have done this? Even the most locked-down ones like Apple have contributed back and made their sources available, not only to the free software community but even to their direct competitors. Look at Webkit, Darwin, Clang/LLVM, CUPS, OpenSSL, etc...
But even then RMS is opposed to the very existence of LLVM just because it is a project that competes with GCC but does not share his ideology and he does not want to allow collaboration between free software and proprietary software developers which he makes quite clear and that sort of zealotry should be discouraged:
"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."
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2014-01/msg00247.html
comparing BSD license to child slavery seems like a fair comparison
Compare it to any violation of rights you wish. The GP's assertion that corporate profits trump rights is pants on head crazy.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Ok but where is this actually happening? People have been raving on about this for decades in the restrictive vs permissive license debate. Restrictive cuts off collaboration with proprietary vendors and permissive relies on proprietary vendors contributing back voluntarily. There's always the anti-permissive doom-and-gloom scenarios but when have they ever actually played out like that? And even if they did you could just fork the permissive codebase to a restrictive one which would cut off the proprietary vendors and just continue on as before without that collaboration.
No...all the GPL says is that the copyright holder isn't surrendering any of his or her rights to control who is allowed to make derivative works by stipulating requirements that must be fulfilled by anyone who wants to make a derivative work. Considering that you need the original copyright holder's permission to make a derivative work anyways, it hasn't taken away any freedoms that would ordinarily have existed otherwise.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Compare it to any violation of rights you wish. The GP's assertion that corporate profits trump rights is pants on head crazy.
He clearly said: And fundamentalism like this is why GPL 3 is so hated in the corporate world. Can't you read? If you don't want that aspect of the corporate world participating in your development then fine, bugger off, thankfully Linus doesnt agree with that sort of stupid religious developer segregation so Linux wont go GPLv3. The funny thing is ultimately you leech a hell of a lot off those corporations anyway, the hardware you use and all those contributions to Linux, X11, et. al ultimately come from those corporations. Even in this post-PC era the idea of a PC that is totally free is still pretty much fantasy, you can scream "violation of rights" and play the idiot comparing it to child slavery all you want but in the end you need those corporations because you *still* cant manage on your own.
1) the copyright holder has that right by default. not exercising it means they still have that right... they have to rather explicitly give it up to not have it.
2) As long as copyright lasts on each derivative work. Bear in mind that for absolutely *ANY* copyrighted work, you need the copyright holder's permission to make a derivative work anyways... the terms of the GPL merely state that anyone who will agree, as determined by whatever actions that they decide take, to the terms of that license will automatically be granted such permission.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You could have said the same thing about slavery, child labor
Don't be a fuckwit.
What's good for corporations is not the same as what's good for people.
But they often overlap. If restricting the user in some way that they dont care about has an even indirect effect of improving the product in an area that the user does care about then it is a benefit to them. By using the product they have not "lost" anything, no freedom that they had has been "taken away", those are the sorts of stupid arguments the RIAA/MPAA and anti-piracy orgs make about theoretically "lost profits".
You talk as if "freedom" is some well-defined and constant thing, but it isnt. Though defining what it could be (especially the lower bound) would probably trivialize your argument as would providing examples of where this has actually happened and what impact it has had and then compare/contrast with the projects that have flourished under that model.
The theory that a BSD-licensed project could potentially have a derived project that is closed off and oppressive (yet somehow also wildly successful proving that the "oppression" is of no consequence anyway) and manages to kill off its free predecessor is no more than FUD, in reality it doesnt actually happen. The reality is that we have a lot of great projects that have leveraged both free software and proprietary software developers to create software that is available free and in non-free devices/products.
It's obvious. In order to increase freedom the GPL restricts freedom; with BSD it's the other way round!
After reading carefully *all* replies in slashdot, phoronix and the list, I wanted to reply to a few topics that have shown recurrently, and are not fitting in the GCC list.
1. RMS should be worried
No, he shouldn't. This is not about mixing licenses, it's not about taking away freedoms and it's not about stealing GCC's shine. RMS's contribution to society cannot be overstated, and I don't mean to obfuscate the importance of GPL, GNU, etc. This simply has *nothing* to do with politics, or copyright, or patents.
2. Only LLVM will benefit, because GCC can already use LLVM's code
While the latter is true, it doesn't imply the former. Also, this is not about being better than GCC, it's about both toolchains being better to the users, which I'm am both. This is not about competition, but collaboration.
Some people say GCC is going to die soon, I disagree. Other people say GCC will rust a bit with all the new blood going to LLVM, that might be a bit more real, but still, highly exaggerated. In any case, GCC is not immune to the outside world. With LLVM being actively encouraged by the kernel community to be compatible, the "one true compiler" position is being slowly replaced by a "number of free/open toolchains available", and in that scenario, GCC will benefit from collaboration as much as LLVM.
I can't read the future, but if you ask me, collaboration is always better, no matter in which position you are.
3. Competition is good for both on innovation
This is true, but collaboration is *also* good. We're talking about free/open software, we can both collaborate where competition hurts our users, as well as compete for performance and new features. I'm not proposing on merging the two toolchains, that would be outright madness! Just that we agree on the size of our nuts and bolts.
4. Enforcing standards & discussions will curb innovation
Absolutely right! Every second we spend arguing is a second we don't spend coding. My idea is to have a sort of zero-cost model, where tools report *how* they do it and maybe even for what reasons, and other tools either agree on, or disagree. A discussion will only happen if there are disparate solutions AND both sides want to argue, which no one should be forced to.
This could wind up in two threads: either every one posts what they think is right and don't discuss anything, or discussion ensues, standards are proposed upstream (C++, ISO, POSIX, Dwarf, etc) and compilers implement a more sane interface and the users benefit. Either way we win, since at least we'll have some documentation. The third outcome is to no one submit anything, than, well, no one spent time anyway, so we haven't lost anything.
5. Other standards should be used instead
Indeed. But standards are slow, and for a reason, and compiler implement extensions that will become standards in the future. This is how it's always been and I don't see this moving away. If most/all free/open compilers implement a specific feature, it'll be more argument to the standard to adopt that feature.
Other bits like warnings, implementation of standard classes, data layout and things that really promote binary compatibility are toolchain specific, and if all agree, than we could *use* a mix of tools interchangeably. This is a win for all the users.
Continuing development of the original won't be terribly useful when the majority of users have moved on to the new incompatible proprietary version...
By continuing development you will have to reinvent the wheel to duplicate any changes in the proprietary version, reverse engineer to work out any incompatibilities and if you continue releasing your code under the same terms the proprietary version can always take your changes for free while you have to expend significant efforts to replicate theirs.
Plus a proprietary version is likely to have a much bigger marketing budget, and thus the lions share of end users, and with proprietary changes making it ever harder to use the original open version.
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Continuing development of the original won't be terribly useful when the majority of users have moved on to the new incompatible proprietary version...
Why not? Aren't you developing it because you want to use it?
By continuing development you will have to reinvent the wheel to duplicate any changes in the proprietary version
If the proprietary version didn't exist you would still have to do that work to develop those features anyway.
Plus a proprietary version is likely to have a much bigger marketing budget, and thus the lions share of end users, and with proprietary changes making it ever harder to use the original open version.
Why does it matter whether that version has more users? I don't use a program because of the amount of other people that use it, I use it because it serves my needs.
First fucking world.
The only truly original major thing RMS has ever done that I'm aware of is create the GPL.
As far as I know, RMS didn't create much of the GPL personally. He had legal assistance, because he was smart enough to know that he wasn't going to be able to personally write legalese that would stand up in court.
Don't get me wrong, the GPL is in a very real sense RMS's creation -- it is designed to accomplish his ideological goals, has his fingerprints all over it -- but much like the Edison lightbulb it was not a purely personal creation.
If only we could always use what served our needs, and never had to interoperate with others...
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How exactly does this preclude interoperability? Even in cases like office suites where you have proprietary products that aren't forks of a free programs (MS Office and iWork), a SaaS model in Google Docs and free options like Libre and Open Office there are people interoperating. In some cases you can end up with formatting problems but this is an extreme case where the products in question aren't even derived from the same code base at all yet allow for interoperability.
And even if the proprietary version was an incompatible fork why would people to move to a system that didn't allow them to interoperate if interoperability was important?