RMS Objects To Support For LLVM's Debugger In GNU Emacs's Gud.el

An anonymous reader writes with the news that Richard Stallman is upset over the prospect of GNU Emacs's Grand Unified Debugger (Gud.el) supporting LLVM's LLDB debugger. Stallman says it looks like there is a systematic effort to attack GNU packages and calls for the GNU Project to respond strategically. He wrote his concerns to the mailing list after a patch emerged that would optionally support LLDB alongside GDB as an alternative debugger for Emacs. Other Emacs developers discounted RMS' claims by saying Emacs supports Windows and OS X, so why not support a BSD-licensed compiler/debugger? The Emacs maintainer has called the statements irrelevant and won't affect their decision to merge the LLDB support.

Comments

Bit of a hatchet job

[cfalcon]

There's a little more than is being reported. Here's some other RMS lines in the same thread:

First we have:

"More precisely, Apple intends LLVM and Clang to make GCC cease to be a
signal success and a reason for all sorts of companies to work on a
compiler that always gives users freedom. That would be a victory for
Apple and a defeat for freedom.

I don't know what LLDB is, or what it might do. I am going to find
out."

That's a little bit paranoid, but it is still a cautious statement.

Then:

"This question is a small part of a big issue which is more or less bad.
I want to find out what it is, and think about it. Please do not ask
me to rush to a conclusion without finding out what is happening."

Again, in all of his posts he mentions wanting to discuss it a bit more. RMS is pretty incendiary, eccentric, and often does or says crazy shit but... in this case it sounds like he said something alarmist to get attention and try to get some discussion, without stamping his foot down or flipping his shit. That he's being selectively quoted to make news is bad juju.

Re:Bit of a hatchet job

[BasilBrush]

If LLVM were a Microsoft product instead of an Apple product

LLVM is not an Apple product. It's an open source project which Apple, amongst others, incorporate into their products, and to which they contribute source improvements.

Re:BSD is more threatening than proprietary

[Dagger2]

Well, it is, but it does sod all to protect that openness, so BSDed software often ends up less open by the time you actually get a copy of it.

The only stuff the GPL doesn't let you do is remove other people's freedom. That should never be a problem unless you were planning to do that in the first place.

The issue isn't sharing vs fame

[Cafe Alpha]

the issue is, can people make money selling software? You know, contributing to their own survival and success. Both for individuals and companies. RMS doesn't care about that.

Re:This Stephan Monnier guy

[Phillip2]

"Stefan"

Re:"Stallman's stated goal has always been to driv

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the GNU Manifesto sometime, would you?

“Won't programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

“Won't everyone stop programming without a monetary incentive?”

Actually, many people will program with absolutely no monetary incentive.

“Programmers need to make a living somehow.”

All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:

Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.

In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the postscarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living.

Re:Ain't freedom a bitch...

[Aighearach]

You clearly didn't read his comments, because you put words in his mouth.

What he actually said:

I don't know what I will find about LLDB. I don't know what
conclusions I will reach about it. So I can't say anything concrete
about it now.

Installing that change would be favorable for Emacs, probably just a
little. It would probably be bad for GDB, but I have no idea how
much. Refusing to installing it would be a statement with some
significance, but I don't know how much. I can't tell whether
it is good or bad to install that change.

Despite this uncertainty, I can say something general about what we
should do. We should do what is best for the GNU system's goal of
giving the users freedom. This means considering what is good for
Emacs and what is good for GDB, to make a decision. Then the whole
GNU Project should do what is best. That is the responsibility of
each GNU package maintainer.

If GNU packages do not support each other, it will be easier
for many of them to fail.

So no, he doesn't say that free software should be less functional. What he says is that there are different harms and benefits for different packages, and the GNU Project should make the decisions in a way that is best for the GNU Project overall, not just each package doing what is best for that package. Not "just because" they're from the same "stable." It isn't a "stable," where different things just happen to be under the same roof for historical reasons, it is a complete project, where the big picture of providing a toolchain that supports the principles of the Free Software Foundation is the over-arching purpose of the whole thing.

To me it seems obvious that gcc is losing market share and the damage to gdb will be done either way. Luckily, gdb is well established and stable and doesn't need a bunch of new features, so there is perhaps little harm to be done by having less contributions. Whereas the danger to Emacs from not supporting newer compilers is more obvious.

If by "similar to... Microsoft" you mean that both organizations want to do what will benefit the goals of the organization, then I'd have say, "well duh." There are strong arguments to be made against that sort of Cathedral approach, and I'm sure there is even extensive published analysis on the differences. None of the critiques would offer to build a better Cathedral, though, so they might just be irrelevant to the decisions that the GNU Project has to make.

The really key thing here to understand though, is that he says: " I can't tell whether it is good or bad to install that change." From that, you took away that he has "in his mind" a conclusion that clearly contradicts what he said is... in his mind. That reminds me a lot of a tactic that Microsoft is famous for: FUD!

Actually it is inverted FUD, because you took an uncertainty that is full of doubt, and tried to make it certain in order to spread fear.

Re:Forced benevolence is not freedom

[faffod]

BSD licensed software allows someone to take it, modify it in some meaningful way, and not share those changes back with the community at large. In that sense, it is possible for software licensed under a BSD license to lose the freedom it had. The developers did not lose any freedoms, the source did. GPL does not force you to be benevolent, it just requires that if you want to use GPL'ed software that your contributions remain benevolent (to use your term). If you don't want to, then chose some other solution, no one is forcing you to use GPL.
Both licenses have their strengths and weaknesses. Both cater to different needs and are appropriate for different (possibly overlapping) uses.Neither is a one size fits all, and neither is better than the other.