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Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

gcc.gnu.org

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Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#171

Post by drcube »

fleitz wrote: post #151
drcube wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source and Free software are essentially equivalent when it comes to licensing. The difference is in their motivation. So when RMS says that, he's saying Clang/LLVM opened up the source code in order help their software perform better and see wider usage. Whereas RMS's goal for GCC is to ensure freedom for its users. Technical superiority is great, but it is not the goal, and may be sacrificed if necessary to ac…

There's a couple claims here: 1) Free means freedom in the copyleft sense. 2) Free means freedom in the open source sense. 3) Free means free as in beer. In the article RMS appears to be using definition 1, elsewhere on the FSF site the FSF uses 2. "In the free software movement, we campaign for the freedom of the users of computing. The values of free software are fundamentally different from the values of open sour…

You're confounding issues here. RMS is in the position of a critic of the US government, rightly claiming that, while your country is "free", it installs and supports dictatorships all over the world. It is possible to be unfree, and not support other dictatorships, like Cuba.

It is possible to be both unfree, and support dictatorships, like the USSR. RMS's goal with GCC, is to be like the mythical free country that also supports freedom and discourages dictatorships elsewhere in the world.

In other words, your software can be free, and yet support and aid those who would take your freedom away. This is the claim RMS is making of Clang.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#172

Post by rimantas »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #153
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…

What you call ideology I like to think of as taking the long view. The primary goal is to create software that will remain useful. Time and time RMS has been proven right about the detrimental consequences of non-free software, but usually over the span of many, many years. Non-free software has a habit of working well and doing what you want right until it doesn't and then royally screws you. You can only be pragmat…

It is really very funny to read your and similar comments and to think why clang was created.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#173

Post by ochs »

ygra wrote: post #105
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think that's true. Phone systems are standardised. There is also free telephony software (like asterisk). The cell phone stuff is more secretive, but it's still more open than Skype, which is completely obfuscated, proprietary and centralised.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#174

Post by gillianseed »

mortdeus wrote: post #160

This argument is moot. Proprietary software doesn't have to live at a dissonance from FLOSS software, nor does free software protect the integrity of freedom. So there are proprietary compilers being derived from LLVM... How does that prevent somebody from throwing out the proprietary compiler on principle in order to support the open source alternative? Forcing somebody to respect your ideological beliefs regarding…

Your argument is 'moot'.

Free software is no more 'forcing' anyone to respect your ideological beliefs than proprietary software is, in neither case you can 'prevent anyone from throwing it out on principle'.

Proprietary limits the rights of end users, you are free to not use proprietary software.

Free software secures rights of end users, you are free to not use Free software.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#175

Post by burntsushi »

Someone wrote: post #89
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.

I think the FSF would argue that desperate cases require desperate remedies. You shouldn't expect your army to behave nicely at all times, even while defending your freedom. RMS isn't disrespecting others, he just has been at war so long that he isn't aware of their sensitivities.

What desperate cases?

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#176

Post by Tloewald »

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…

I find it telling that RMS explicitly has a problem with LLVM because it helps private companies "as well as us" instead of only helping us. It's literally zero-sum for him. He doesn't want companies to benefit in any way from open source.

I think there's a big problem with copyright and software -- the goal of copyright is to provide public goods, but the public goods that copyright protects is the source code, not the binary, yet there are no guarantees that the public will ever get the source code. I think if this problem were addressed (e.g. all software that seeks copyright protection must have its source code placed in escrow) then a lot of RMS's legitimate issues with closed source software would be mitigated. I'm sure he would still resent code being closed source, but at least we'd know that in 25 years or whatever the source code would become available to all.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#177

Post by tzs »

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…

> I do believe Apple added the restrictions on having only non-GPL code [...]

Apple allows GPL code in the App store. There are many GPL apps (both GPLv2 and GPLv3) in the store.

If you are using GPL code that you do not own in your app, you do need to get a non-GPL license from the owners to allow Apple to distribute it, and so the code ends up dual licenses--special license for Apple, GPL for everyone else.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#178

Post by BlackDeath3 »

sepeth wrote: post #96
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." And I think, that's a better position to be in; I mean, freedom is more important than to have good softwares.

>freedom is more important than to have good softwares

Yes, I agree, freedom to have the essentials for human survival is a lot more important than having instant access to the latest BF4 patch.

Care to provide a bit of qualification and relevance to your broad, context-free, ill-defined statement?

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#179

Post by _Simon »

sparkie wrote: post #162
shawkinaw wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that allowing you to do whatever you want with a piece of software (e.g. selling non-free derivatives) is considered restricting freedom .

Allowing you to do whatever you want is not the same as allowing everyone to do whatever they want. You can't understand free software from an egocentric view of the world. A non-free derivative will ultimately restrict someone's freedom, hence, considering it restricting freedom is perfectly applicable. We could debate forever on the semantics of which is more free , but I don't think having the freedom to restrict…

It's not freedom in any sense of the word. The FSF is at best a fiefdom, but in all reality a dictatorship. Stallmans utopian future is more 1984 than any of the actors he accuses. This whole thing is bullshit.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#180

Post by sparkie »

mhurron wrote: post #143
sepeth wrote: post #96

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." And I think, that's a better position to be in; I mean, freedom is more important than to have good softwares.

Given that software is a tool, I would say it is more important that it work.

Is it more important even if it allows somebody to remotely disable the breaks on your car while you're doing 50mph? Or perhaps disabling your camera while you're being assaulted by a police officer? What about the predator who's monitoring your children's activities and location because they downloaded a game?

I picked some pretty harsh possibilities there that seem a little dystopian, but I wouldn't rule any of them out, or any of the million other horrific possibilities that increased coupling of technology to our lives, without (self-)regulation could enable.

If you really want software to 'just work', you should probably first ask, who is it working for?

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