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Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

android.googlesource.com

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Re: Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

#41

Post by michael_storm »

haroldp wrote: post #9
bracewel wrote: post #3

waits for RMS to get mad https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2014-01/msg00247.html

> I would guess they describe their work as "open source" and do not talk about freedom. Wow, what an asshole. Maybe they consider legal restrictions on how other people may use their software to be the opposite of freedom? Maybe that is the truth and maybe RMS has a good point to make, but how tone deaf is to call anything that isn't GNU, "unfree"? To suggest that they don't even talk about freedom because their lic…

RMS is a politician, dude; calm down. Let's look at the preceding sentences:

> The Clang and LLVM developers reach different conclusions from ours because they do not share our values and goals. They object to the measures we have taken to defend freedom because they see the inconvenience of them and do not recognize (or don't care about) the need for them. I would guess they describe their work as "open source" and do not talk about freedom.

That's much more nuanced than "anything that isn't GNU isn't free". He thinks that their license is a lot different, because he has a particular definition of "free" that he's championed for decades. Putting "and this is what I mean by 'free'" into every statement would be more PR-friendly, but redundant for... anyone who's heard RMS speak or breathe for 30 years.

If anything, this is a reasonable statement from a politician: "The Clang and LLVM developers reach different conclusions from ours because they do not share our values and goals." Maybe save the "what an asshole" comment for if he ever says, "LLVM hates freedom, GNU rules, BSD drools."

Re: Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

#42

Post by detaro »

smegel wrote: post #11
vvpan wrote: post #5

The title is a bit misleading. It is deprecated in the context of that project. Meaning they personally won't support it anymore. It's not deprecated in general as a compiler.

Did the title not have "Android NDK:" in it at some point?

Don't think so, I guess it could be interpreted as "the NDK project is claiming that GCC should be generally deprecated"

Re: Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

#44

Post by TallGuyShort »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #16
Aloha wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS is nothing if not ideologically consistent. I applaud his goals and perseverance, even if they are not quite the same as mine.

He's consistent to a point. He's quite silent about the hardware aspect, even though free software licensed CPU designs have been available for a long while.

He's not silent by any means - even though he focuses on software. I've seen his writings address hardware several times.

Re: Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

#45

Post by elsjaako »

mjburgess wrote: post #18
the_ancient wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS wants user freedom, not developer freedom That is the point people always miss. RMS believes that end user of software / hardware should be in complete control, it was/is never about developers. BSD/MIT/etc lic may provide for more developer freedom, but often they are used to restrict user freedom as the code is folded/packaged into commercial projects with non-free licenses

It's a somewhat artificial distinction, since the user of a piece of software becomes a developer to modify it. And to preclude modifications which prevent him from effectively monetizing his labour is to infringe on his freedom. Prehaps it would not be if money (etc.) didnt exist. It's always the way, however, with idealists to prescribe policies that make people free in their utopia but cause chaos in our reality.

What I take from it is that he wants to provide freedom in general, not of any particular person.

If I have the freedom to take someone elses freedom away, then that is more freedom until I actually take someones freedom away.

To use an extreme example, if we had the freedom to own slaves you could argue that there where more freedoms available to us. But if you actually want to protect freedom you don't allow people to own slaves.

Re: Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

#46

Post by lmm »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #32
sliverstorm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the design, and you have access to FPGAs, I'd say that's got you pretty close already. Edit: We were talking about CPUs, not complete systems. And yes, the performance would be poor, but RMS has already strongly established that in his book performance is a distant runner-up to free.

>By pretty close you mean no where near a usable system then you'd be correct. If you're not a hardware person, as I'm not, I don't think I could go from blank fpga and parts to a working laptop with a keyboard, trackpoint, and lcd screen in any reasonable amount of time, nor with any certainty that it would work and not be error-prone. The exact same argument can be made about the operating system.

I can and have patched bugs in my operating system.

I have no clue where I'd even start to patch a bug in my hardware.

Re: Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

#47

Post by lmm »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #17
the_ancient wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS wants user freedom, not developer freedom That is the point people always miss. RMS believes that end user of software / hardware should be in complete control, it was/is never about developers. BSD/MIT/etc lic may provide for more developer freedom, but often they are used to restrict user freedom as the code is folded/packaged into commercial projects with non-free licenses

That's terribly ironic, since the source code is completely useless to the user, only developers.

Even if you can't make changes yourself, if you have access to the source you can pay other people to make changes you need.

Re: Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

#48

Post by cbd1984 »

Buge wrote: post #10
klodolph wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably a bug in libc++, not Clang. They're under the same roof, but different people work on them. Also, I would mock you for using at all but you've probably got legacy code just the same as I do.

I'm curious, what's wrong with iostream?

How do you internationalize strings built up from multiple string fragments?

Re: Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

#49

Post by Solarsail »

duaneb wrote: post #15
psibi wrote: post #8

For someone not following the project, what's the reason for deprecation and switch over to LLVM ?

Cleaner, better documented, better interface, highly competitive performance, faster compiles, active development community, emscripten, better tooling/IDE integration. License is not viral.

Those are all general issues that would apply to developing GCC, aside from compile times and tooling integration they don't effect NDK users. So the question goes back to being specific, why deprecate GCC while it's still popular elsewhere and well supported on this hardware?

Eddyit: Spelshing.

Re: Android NDK: GCC is now deprecated, everyone should be switching to Clang

#50

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

the_ancient wrote: post #14
haroldp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would guess they describe their work as "open source" and do not talk about freedom. Wow, what an asshole. Maybe they consider legal restrictions on how other people may use their software to be the opposite of freedom? Maybe that is the truth and maybe RMS has a good point to make, but how tone deaf is to call anything that isn't GNU, "unfree"? To suggest that they don't even talk about freedom because their lic…

RMS wants user freedom, not developer freedom That is the point people always miss. RMS believes that end user of software / hardware should be in complete control, it was/is never about developers. BSD/MIT/etc lic may provide for more developer freedom, but often they are used to restrict user freedom as the code is folded/packaged into commercial projects with non-free licenses

> RMS wants user freedom, not developer freedom

And that's why we have the GNU toolchain, which is some of the most end user-friendly software ever made?

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