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Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

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Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#101

Post by Nursie »

intermatrigator wrote: post #11
beering wrote: post #2

The people who campaign for GPL software authors to change their license seem to assume that the authors of the software naively chose the GPL, as opposed to choosing it for its particular spirit. That's really important distinction that people don't realize about the GPL - it's designed to protect the rights of the END USERS. And that's great when the end user is you and me, but it's also not surprising that we, as…

end users do not give a shit about source code (or software licensing at all).

I'm an end user. You probably are too. As an end user the GPL benefits me by granting me access to the code, to make alterations, to republish as I see fit.

Most end users don't care. Some do.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#102

Post by Someone »

Anderkent wrote: post #46
intermatrigator wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

end users do not give a shit about source code (or software licensing at all).

Well yes, that's the basis for Stallman's argument. If end users cared about free code, we wouldn't need to enforce it from the other side - nonfree software would have no users.

I care about free oxygen for all, but if the only way to get it was by buying it, I would still buy it, and applaud those attempting to enforce it.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#103

Post by streptomycin »

dragonwriter wrote: post #97
streptomycin wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If LLVM is so bad why are the people who make it so much easier to work with? Who said it was bad? People have said it is not copyleft. I think the biggest hurdle to people caring about copyleft is the sheer tonnage of disrespect people like RMS show to others. Nobody wants to work with a curmudgeon. I think that's ridiculous. Do you really think corporate backers of LLVM would just ignore their economic incentives f…

> Who said it was bad? RMS. > People have said it is not copyleft. RMS says that it is bad because it is not copyleft. Specifically, he says "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". Do you not think that "terrible setback for our community" is a subset of "bad"?

I interpreted "bad" in his post to mean "technologically bad" not "morally bad". On second thought, I might have misinterpreted his post. In that case, then the obvious answer to "If LLVM is so (morally) bad why are the people who make it so much easier to work with?" is that niceness and political ideology are only very loosely correlated, at best.

The other part of my comment still stands, though (I think).

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#104

Post by pmr_ »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #59
rwg wrote: post #32

When I finally realized that the FSF is really about being a social movement and that creating useful software is a non-primary goal (or maybe even a non-goal), my level of annoyance with RMS greatly decreased. Of course, along with that, my level of give-a-shit about the FSF and the GNU project decreased proportionally. Stallman wants you to use Free software because it's free-as-in-ideology, not because it necessar…

> Stallman wants you to use Free software because it's free-as-in-ideology, not because it necessarily works well or does what you want. Though, the point is, you can make free software work the way you want or work better. You're _allowed_ to. That isn't necessarily the case with other software; that is the point of free software.

You are correct in that the license is free, but it isn't a copyleft license.

This is a purely political decision: RMS wants gcc not only to be free software but he also wants it to be unusable to create non-free derivatives thus making it an active tool in furthering free software. clang undermines this because you can create non-free software based on it thus making it a tool that can easily be used to restrict freedom.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#105

Post by ygra »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #40
thinkpad20 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You feel the need to censor "heck"? Seriously though, I agree. Stallman here seems to be adopting almost a religious argument, not a pragmatic one. He even announces a refusal to use Skype because it's not free software. If he prioritizes freedom over everything else, then more power to him, but to me talking about who "wins" and "loses" on some kind of arbitrary scale of freedom does not make a compelling case again…

He even announces a refusal to use Skype because it's not free software. Which is a valid complaint given the nature of Skype. There's also tons of other reasons, though. Primarily technical ones. Either way, software freedom is an important goal and even though I don't necessarily agree with RMS in this case, I understand where he's coming from. So many people seem to have some phobia of accentuating the ethical, fr…

Re Skype: He also suggests just making a normal phone call. Which has pretty much the same problems: It's an opaque, closed system with pretty much the only difference that there are multiple companies controlling it instead of just one.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#106

Post by smrtinsert »

codex wrote: post #16

Stallman consistently ignores the free market when writing about software freedom. What users want, the free market will provide. If they want customizable software, the market will give it to them. If they only want feature X, the market will give it to them. If they want interop., they will get that too. If they don't care about modifying the source code, well, people won't offer it. The GPL is not what allows user…

The free market, what a great idea. Producing great things such as skyrocketing health care costs, the mortgage crisis and others...

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#107

Post by jimktrains2 »

eliteraspberrie wrote: post #10

I invite those working on major add-ons to LLVM to release them under GNU GPL version-3-or-later. I don't use the GPL because I cannot honestly say that I understand it entirely. I understand copyleft, but the document is written for lawyers and I am not one. I can't expect users to read it either, much less understand it. I use the BSD licenses because they are simple and clear. If I ever had to defend my intellectu…

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html it isn't that bad to get through. There are also more than enough analysis of it on the web from reputable sources (I'm looking for good links...).

If you understand copyleft, then you know what you're giving up by not using a copyleft, license. Do you not care about what you gain from the copyleft or don't want what you gain?

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#108

Post by chc »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #68
pantalaimon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a social movement that cares about what is the epitome of a first-world-problem.

Not necessarily. If a 3rd world farmer is hamstrung by licenses on any tools they have (and seeds they grow), that could prevent them from making those tools better, or crossbreeding those seeds. Same with educational software and material. Just because the focus is mainly on software, which is admittedly a 1st world problem, doesn't mean the ideals can't apply to the 3rd world as well.

Third-world farmers won't be hamstrung by licenses because the third world does not care about licenses.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#109

Post by ygra »

lmkg wrote: post #70
octo_t wrote: post #7

Is it bad I just don't care that LLVM has enabled non-free software? Because it has done a h*ck of a lot for opensource software. New languages, new compilers, new optimisers, new IDEs have sprung up around an impressive framework. I also don't understand how LLVM enables non-free software any more than binutils does. I can do: binutils/cat my_file | my_incredibly_none_free_program | binutils/grep my_pattern which is…

> Is it bad I just don't care that LLVM has enabled non-free software? Because it has done a h ck of a lot for opensource software.* This presents an interesting (to RMS) quandary. I take it as a given that he prioritizes the freedom of software over its technical merits (as discussed in other threads). But, even just from the freedom perspective: LLVM increases the amount of proprietary software produced, and also i…

He even touches that directly:

> 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.

... which pretty much is the answer to your last question.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#110

Post by mverwijs »

dragonwriter wrote: post #97
streptomycin wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If LLVM is so bad why are the people who make it so much easier to work with? Who said it was bad? People have said it is not copyleft. I think the biggest hurdle to people caring about copyleft is the sheer tonnage of disrespect people like RMS show to others. Nobody wants to work with a curmudgeon. I think that's ridiculous. Do you really think corporate backers of LLVM would just ignore their economic incentives f…

> Who said it was bad? RMS. > People have said it is not copyleft. RMS says that it is bad because it is not copyleft. Specifically, he says "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". Do you not think that "terrible setback for our community" is a subset of "bad"?

The license is bad, not the software.

> If LLVM is so bad why are the people who make it so much easier to work with?

How is the license being bad influenced by, or of influence on, the attitude of the developers? Are you saying that surely the license can't be that bad, since the software is written by nice folks?

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