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Defending GCC considered futile

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Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#81

Post by phkahler »

arca_vorago wrote: post #42

Can someone explain to me what all the hubub is about. As far as I understand it and even as RMS himself states, isn't this mostly about them trying to block clang/LLVM tie ins to the debugger more than anything else? I don't understand whats with all the gcc sucks attitude these days. It's worked for quite some time, and yes it's showing some age due to the lack of development so it has lagged behind others, but we…

>>Can someone explain to me what all the hubub is about. As far as I understand it and even as RMS himself states, isn't this mostly about them trying to block clang/LLVM tie ins to the debugger more than anything else?

The "problem" RMS has with llvm is its non-copyleft license. And yes, the issue is that he doesn't want to support llvn with GNU tools. When LLVM started they used GCCs front end to compile C code until their own matured enough. So parts of GCC were being used to develop the middle and back ends of llvm. The LLVM ecosystem is systematically replacing the GNU toolchain with non-copyleft licensed versions and RMS does not want to support that in any way.

>> I don't understand whats with all the gcc sucks attitude these days. It's worked for quite some time, and yes it's showing some age due to the lack of development so it has lagged behind others, but we should all be worried when people very influential in the GNU community start talking about why GCC is bad.

I don't understand it either. GCC is still a great compiler. Developers seem to prefer the modular design of LLVM and they're probably right in that. Users like some of the features enabled by that design as well - IDE integration and cross compilation come to mind. GCC is starting to move, but slowly.

>> I don't like this line of thinking at all.

>> If GCC is behind, fork it and do what needs to be done to make it competitive.

You make it sound like there are lots of compiler developers with time on their hands for open source development AND who share the licensing philosophy AND are unhappy with GCCs development path. Apparently there are not.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

weenie wrote: post #24
lultimouomo wrote: post #3

ESR seems a bit over the line with this mail, but what never ceases to amaze me is how RMS is disconnected with the present technology: >From its name, I guess that LLDB is a noncopylefted debugger and that some might intend it to replace GDB. But I don't know if that is so. This is just one of many, in the recent arguments he has stated several times that he doesn't understand how automated code refactoring works, h…

You have to realize that RMS's goal isn't to "steer important projects", and you should give him more credit in that he probably could be "connected with the present technology" if he wanted to. The fact that "he doesn't know enough anymore" doesn't say much about Stallman; instead it says a lot about how his goal of making sure software is libre has been shoved aside by everyone else for other priorities. Also, RMS…

> The fact that "he doesn't know enough anymore" doesn't say much about Stallman

Yeah, actually, it does: specifically, its says a lot about his qualifications to apply theoretical ideals to real world situations. To intelligently plan how to achieve the goals of the ideology, you need more than devotion to and deep understanding of the ideology, you need deep understanding of the existing context to understand the pragmatics of moving toward the goals of the ideology in that context.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#83

Post by marcosdumay »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #45
hywel wrote: post #6

> Already my own experiments suggest that LLVM is a superior compiler, by every metric I know of Except that it isn't copyleft, which is one of the most important metrics to Stallman, FSF et al, and is why they're unlikely to stop defending it.

It is copyleft. In fact they leave you more rights to copy the source than GPL.

The word "copyleft" has a meaning. Please, don't polute the discussion with missleading political speech trying to change its meaning.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#84

Post by davidw »

hga wrote: post #74
davidw wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I missing something, or is this fear of corporations totally unjustified? Sun Microsystems basically grabbed BSD development by hiring up a lot of good people and running with it. It took a while for the various free BSD's to come into their own. Basically, with "bsd licensed" software, if a big company hired up all the developers, they could take it proprietary and out-compete fork efforts. I don't think it hap…

Really??? The AT&T lawsuit and the end of DARPA BSD funding and that research group at UCB didn't have a lot to do with that? That was several years after Sun got in bed with AT&T and announced that BSD based SunOS was doomed. I don't know, but I wonder.

There are lots of factors, and you can't exactly rerun the experiment a number of times, tweaking all of them.

There's also the fact that the internet was far less available in that day and age, making it more difficult to get good people involved.

I don't think it's a big risk, but like I said, I don't think it's impossible either.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#85

Post by dragonwriter »

weenie wrote: post #31
hga wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" You have to realize that RMS's goal isn't to 'steer important projects' " Not as such, but as long as he's doing it for so many marque GNU/FSF projects....

Out of necessity and as a means to an end, because nobody else sharing his philosophy is willing to do it.

> Out of necessity and as a means to an end, because nobody else sharing his philosophy is willing to do it.

I think that's a pretty striking description of failure in promoting an ideology.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#86

Post by Htsthbjig »

arca_vorago wrote: post #42

Can someone explain to me what all the hubub is about. As far as I understand it and even as RMS himself states, isn't this mostly about them trying to block clang/LLVM tie ins to the debugger more than anything else? I don't understand whats with all the gcc sucks attitude these days. It's worked for quite some time, and yes it's showing some age due to the lack of development so it has lagged behind others, but we…

LLvm was created with a different philosophy from GCC. It fact it started being a GCC add on.

Llvm uses his own debugger. It is just RMS realizing people are abandoning GCC en masse, and not liking it. Just that.

LLVM wanted to develop it on ways that gcc people did not, so they created something from scratch, after trying to modify GCC because it was so complex.

It is not simply a fork, but a complete redesign.

LLVM main advantages are:

Instead of being a monoblock compiler like gcc, LLVM is a series of inter operable libraries and tools. This way you can program your own different compilers, or parsers, or debuggers just including libraries.

The above means you don't need to use scripts like in gcc but you can actually program a compiler very easily.

You also don't need to use the linker if you just want a parser. Or you don't need the parser if you already have stored or computer generated an Abstract syntax tree.

It uses his own cross platform "assembly" code so you can use it with dozens of different languages, or compile dozens of different languages.

It compiles to bytecode. It makes portable code possible, programming GPUs on the fly, javascript...

You can use it for whatever you want, even making closed source software.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#87

Post by hga »

josteink wrote: post #76
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that his knowledge is outdated, it's also that his philosophical principles will always take precedence over everything else, which includes sound and/or pragmatic technological decisions. I'm not fond of esr in general but he's spot on with this post.

> It's not just that his knowledge is outdated, it's also that his philosophical principles will always take precedence over everything else To be fair to RMS he has tried to consider opposing views in the past when he can see and understand the need behind the proposition. In this case the problem is that RMS doesn't know enough C++/Java/C#-style OO programming, and can't understand why you would need refactoring to…

"People just want to make Emacs better, and he is vigorously denying people the features they ask for."

And while I have as of yet no opinion on the concept, a lot of people believe he's hypocritical for supporting non-free OSes in GCC and Gnu Emacs.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#88

Post by the_af »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #16
lultimouomo wrote: post #3

ESR seems a bit over the line with this mail, but what never ceases to amaze me is how RMS is disconnected with the present technology: >From its name, I guess that LLDB is a noncopylefted debugger and that some might intend it to replace GDB. But I don't know if that is so. This is just one of many, in the recent arguments he has stated several times that he doesn't understand how automated code refactoring works, h…

It's not just that his knowledge is outdated, it's also that his philosophical principles will always take precedence over everything else, which includes sound and/or pragmatic technological decisions. I'm not fond of esr in general but he's spot on with this post.

Note this is explicitly RMS' philosophy, which hasn't changed. For him, freedom takes precedence over technological quality. He has been saying this for ages, for example when he explained that Open Source (as represented by Eric Raymond) and Free Software (as represented by the FSF) have very different goals.

If you accept that RMS' worldview is about freedom, even if it sometimes means sacrificing some technological advantages, you'll see his position is consistent and reasonable.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#89

Post by tjr »

protomyth wrote: post #70
longlivegnu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, RMS does not "browse the web" he has a server that runs a script sort of like wget or cURL.

Is there a source for why he doesn't "browse the web"? I've read about how he does it, but the articles I have seen are very light on the reason.

https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

I've never heard him flat-out say "why", but it sure appears to be in order to maximize anonymity / privacy on the web.

Re: Defending GCC considered futile

#90

Post by ForHackernews »

Anyone see the header on Stallman's response? https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00...

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]

> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]

> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

He's such an adorable ideologue.

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