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

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

#71

Post by zlatan_todoric »

bracewel wrote: post #3

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

RMS is an idealist. If people actually made what he proposed (envisioned), world would be much better place.

It is hard to see the entire impact of Free software and even harder to predict how the world would like if people actually stood up to it but I can say that I am sure we would have:

- more secure Internet - more decentralized/distributed Internet - no ISP blocks - much harder if not even impossible NSA spying - no disgusting DRM - no patents and patent trolls -> more inovation - no force updates, no abandoned users - more competition in hardware and software field - things being developed for people and not sheer profit - ... - add your points

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

#72

Post by eropple »

michael_storm wrote: post #41
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 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…

While I see where you're coming from, and I don't agree with the way you've framed this. That idiosyncratic and generally unshared definition of "freedom" does, to me, make him (and his devotees) at least a little shitty when they attempt to claim moral superiority based on it.

I feel the same way about other religionists who assert judgment based on their own pet beliefs, it's not an FSF-specific thing.

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

#73

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #67

The sad thing is that "easy to link and embed" and "permissive license" really didn't have to go together like they did in LLVM. GCC could have provided a library that made it easy to do code generation or compiler development. That library could still have used the GPL, so that only Free Software could use it. Some of the work that has happened around LLVM wouldn't have happened around such a library, but some of it…

I doubt that rust would have happened under the gpl but i would love to hear what the rust team has to say about that.

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

#74

Post by prodigal_erik »

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…

No words like "free" or "freedom" appear anywhere on the http://llvm.org/ homepage. The license merely says "free of charge" without any kind of rationale. Certainly there's no GNU-style manifesto explaining their carefully-considered views on the rights a software user ought to have.

Think what you like about whether they should talk about freedom, but we can easily confirm that they don't.

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

#75

Post by drzaiusapelord »

jordigh wrote: post #63
bracewel wrote: post #3

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

I wonder what kind of world we would have if GNU were completely defeated, if no one released anything under the GPL anymore. Sure, free software would still exist, but nobody would call it "free software" and no one would prevent anyone else from creating non-free derivatives. Nearly all software would be "open core", with some free software here and there but with many or most of the interesting components non-free…

We used to call that "public domain software" and it was big in the 80s from what I recall (I was a kid then). You'd release something to the public domain and people can do with it whatever they wished. Then GNU came around and ate everyone's lunch, for better or worse. I suspect for better.

Maybe GNU is just a stop-gap movement to get everyone on board the FOSS train, who knows. BSD licensing hasn't caused any apocalypse yet and arguably it provided a networking stack for Windows that was superior to anything MS could rush out the door back in the NT 3.5 days. There's something nice about being able to put the code into commercial products without worrying about strict GNU/GPL-like conditions.

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by alblue »

fixermark wrote: post #51
earlz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone messing with LLVM a lot.. basically LLVM is where a ton of development effort is going. GCC is a dead end it seems like. LLVM is designed to be extended where as GCC.. well, usually doesn't really seem to have been designed.

It, sadly, goes deeper than that, past architecture to philosophy. LLVM is designed to be modularized and embedded in other binaries and toolchains, which makes it easier to build extensions and tooling around it. In addition to having a mountain of legacy code, gcc's project steering is philosophically opposed to allowing non-free (as in GPL) plugins [ https://lwn.net/Articles/582242/ ]. Because of this, developers…

I think you have a typo in exist -> exits? Either that or I couldn't understand the sentence.

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

#78

Post by djsumdog »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #67

The sad thing is that "easy to link and embed" and "permissive license" really didn't have to go together like they did in LLVM. GCC could have provided a library that made it easy to do code generation or compiler development. That library could still have used the GPL, so that only Free Software could use it. Some of the work that has happened around LLVM wouldn't have happened around such a library, but some of it…

I feel like you're missing the point of the GNU GPL. The original idea behind the FSFs idea of open source was an ecosystem where every new development resulted in more open and free code. We're talking about people who truly believed in getting away from commercial software entirely. There were people who felt that one day, Linux desktops could replace Windows and even high end tools like Photoshop and Final Cut would have great open source replacements.

...but that never happened. Apple has tried to remove all GPL code from Mac OS. Where GPL code exists, it's only GPLv2 (like Bash; using an ancient version).

Even though all these companies are embracing opens source, they're embracing only permissive licenses. They're open sourcing the underlying tech stack while keeping all their offerings closed. If you're on Android, you are totally locked into Google services. I've met people who tried only using F-droid and running "open source phones" (minus the drivers of course). Their phones sucked. One of them switched back because she was tired of writing apps to do things she use to be able to do with the Play Store.

The dream of a GPL world where the software is free and you only pay for the hardware, is pretty much gone. We don't have federated systems, and where we do, no one uses them (GNU Social, Miro, Diasporia).

This isn't the open source world some of us envisioned back in the late 90s. I personally, will keep as much of my code under GNU GPL as I can.

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

#79

Post by yuhong »

djsumdog wrote: post #78
JoshTriplett wrote: post #67

The sad thing is that "easy to link and embed" and "permissive license" really didn't have to go together like they did in LLVM. GCC could have provided a library that made it easy to do code generation or compiler development. That library could still have used the GPL, so that only Free Software could use it. Some of the work that has happened around LLVM wouldn't have happened around such a library, but some of it…

I feel like you're missing the point of the GNU GPL. The original idea behind the FSFs idea of open source was an ecosystem where every new development resulted in more open and free code. We're talking about people who truly believed in getting away from commercial software entirely. There were people who felt that one day, Linux desktops could replace Windows and even high end tools like Photoshop and Final Cut wou…

What is funny is that Apple is even doing this for code that will never be in iOS, for example Samba.

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

#80

Post by sprash »

steve19 wrote: post #55
earlz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone messing with LLVM a lot.. basically LLVM is where a ton of development effort is going. GCC is a dead end it seems like. LLVM is designed to be extended where as GCC.. well, usually doesn't really seem to have been designed.

GCC has been designed specifically NOT to be extended. Richard Stallman reasoned that by exposing an interface to other applications, or allowing other applications to access or modify intermediate code/trees, closed source proprietary applications could be built around GCC. He was probably right ... but we all ended up with a worse compiler.

> worse compiler

Last time I checked gcc binaries beat Clang performance wise.

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