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Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

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Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#131

Post by fleitz »

pmr_ wrote: post #104
jimktrains2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 fre…

Exactly, if you read the whole thing it sounds like George Bush

> They have been supported by Apple, the company which hates our freedom so much that its app store for the ithings _requires_ all apps to be nonfree.

> The only code that helps us and not our adversaries is copylefted code. Free software released under a pushover license is available for us to use, but available to our adversaries just as well.

> If that enables GCC to "win", the victory would be hollow, because it would not be a victory for what really matters: users' freedom.

> 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

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#132

Post by e12e »

chimeracoder wrote: post #112
atonse wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any examples where end users have been screwed by a program that was compiled using LLVM?

> a program that was compiled using LLVM? Neither compiler affects the licences of the output. In the case of a compiler, the "end user" is the end user of a compiler (which in today's world is a developer, but 20 years ago may not have been). End users are "screwed over" in this sense every time permissively-licensed free software is forked into proprietary versions that the users cannot do one of the following 1) S…

> Neither compiler affects the licences of the output.

Yes and no -- most programs use a c runtime/standard lib (libc). While both allow the use of differenc libcs, it's not quite clear that the gcc toolchain doesn't have any implications for the executable. Just being (overly) pedantic, not trying to contribute to the FSF/GPL FUD.

As for grand-parents point: the kind of scenarios where llvm is "scary" is for instance if a gpu vendor releases a closed compiler (or part of a compiler) for writing massively parallel code and/or shaders. Sometimes such a compiler might be called a driver, even if what it does is (among other things) compile code.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#133

Post by gress »

Touche wrote: post #26
zbowling wrote: post #4

> They have been supported by Apple, the company which hates our freedom so much that its app store for the ithings _requires_ all apps to be nonfree. (*) This is a judgement of the motives of Apple that I do not believe is correct by Stallman and he making a straw man case for it. I don't think that Apple "hates" their freedom. I do believe Apple added the restrictions on having only non-GPL code because they unders…

> This is a judgement of the motives of Apple that I do not believe is correct by Stallman and he making a straw man case for it. I don't think that Apple "hates" their freedom. I think Apple views freedom as a threat to their business, so if companies are capable of "hate" then I think the statement is accurate.

Apple doesn't view 'freedom' as a threat. It views crappy user experience for regular people as a threat, and it fears that if it doesn't exert control over the ecosystem, that will be the result.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#134

Post by quenlinlom »

jjoonathan wrote: post #115
hacknat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If LLVM is so bad why are the people who make it so much easier to work with? You shall know a tree by it's fruits. It wouldn't bother me one way or another whether LLVM was copyleft or not, the people who run it are more pleasant to work with. 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.

> If LLVM is so bad RMS doesn't have a problem with LLVM because it's bad, he has a problem with it because it's good. > the biggest hurdle to people caring about copyleft is the sheer tonnage of disrespect people like RMS show to others No, the biggest hurdles to people caring about copyleft are by far the incompatibilities with accepted practices and existing software that make it a lot of work to comply with copyl…

The problem with RMS is that he always assumes people to agree with his way of thinking. His uncompromising tone is also a big problem.

I know, programmers are supposed to be emotionless meritocratic robots, but this Old Boys Know Best attitude is precisely why RMS and GCC is losing user share so quickly these days: the extremist meritocracy of programming culture is actually highly male-centric, and it simply scares off all women and any men who are not sexists.

This is why LLVM is gaining so much support these days: it's technically superior, and its development community isn't sexist.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#135

Post by gress »

sepeth wrote: post #128
gress wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Execept it's not even that. It's a narrow definition of freedom. Free as in socialism vs free as in capitalism.

I believe, it is broader than you think: we’re always telling children that they have to learn to share, to be considerate of each other’s needs, to help each other; then we go off into the real world where we assume that everyone is naturally selfish and competitive. But an anarchist would point out: in fact, what we say to our children is right. Pretty much every great worthwhile achievement in human history, every…

I totally believe in cooperation and mutual aid. I believe it's critical for that to be based on trust and individual choice, or it is meaningless. This is why I don't like RMS's attempt to force it on us.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#137

Post by NAFV_P »

crazy1van wrote: post #91

How does Stallman fund his life? I'm assuming he gets paid a salary. So he's ok with doing work for money himself, but not ok with other people monetizing their efforts in a slightly different way. I don't understand.

> How does Stallman fund his life? Probably with great difficulty, but looking at the guy I bet he's never even seen a suit and tie. Also because of his views on privacy, I think speculating what his average drawings are is a waste of time. I don't think he uses a mobile phone, so what are the chances of him waving his T-accounts in the press' face?

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#138

Post by fleitz »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #126
fleitz wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would guess they describe their work as "open source" and do not talk about freedom. Actually he doesn't....he considers Clang/LLVM to be open source and not free, Clang/LLVM does not restrict users from developing their own extensions and licensing them as they see fit which ironically makes the software not free (according to the RMS ideological software freedom purity test).

Nope. The NCSA license is considered a free software license and is GPL compatible according to the FSF. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

That's fucking great, my uncle bob thinks it is too, but we're talking about RMS not the FSF.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#139

Post by e12e »

cma wrote: post #14
zbowling wrote: post #4

> They have been supported by Apple, the company which hates our freedom so much that its app store for the ithings _requires_ all apps to be nonfree. (*) This is a judgement of the motives of Apple that I do not believe is correct by Stallman and he making a straw man case for it. I don't think that Apple "hates" their freedom. I do believe Apple added the restrictions on having only non-GPL code because they unders…

Read what he wrote in the asterisk; he is making a distinction about DRM and terms of use. A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests. http://www.openlogic.com/blog/bid/156894/Are-App-Stores-Liab... "Either way, the next question in…

> A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests.

DMCA is afaik only valid in the US? So for Apple's stores in other jurisdictions it wouldn't matter?

As for the GPL being a problem for SF in the first place, that sounds odd to me -- isn't that like saying that the company I'm leasing a VPS from is a distributor of the software I make available from my site? Obviously there's a distinction, but it sounds odd that SF should be considered a distributor?

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#140

Post by jarjoura »

I can sympathize with RMS's argument that companies like Apple & Google can create plugins and modules that are proprietary because LLVM/Clang has a non-copyleft license.

However, it would not be in any contributing companies favor to avoid pushing changes back up stream. The pool of people work together to solve really hard problems and they all need to be on the same page. Otherwise that work will become extremely hard to maintain when merges do need to happen.

Maybe I do not understand the licensing, but since LLVM is "more" free, couldn't RMS and his FSF members create a GPLv3 version of it that meets his goal?

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