Rust GCC backend: Why and how
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Rust GCC backend: Why and how
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Re: Rust GCC backend: Why and how
#2I find it shocking that 20 years after LLVM was created, gcc still hasn't moved towards modularization of codegen.
Re: Rust GCC backend: Why and how
#3I find it shocking that 20 years after LLVM was created, gcc still hasn't moved towards modularization of codegen.
Isn't that very much intentional on the part of GCC?
Re: Rust GCC backend: Why and how
#4I find it shocking that 20 years after LLVM was created, gcc still hasn't moved towards modularization of codegen.
Isn't that very much intentional on the part of GCC?
It is intentional to avoid non-free projects from building on top of gcc components.
I am not familiar enough with gcc to know how it impacts out-of-tree free projects or internal development.
The decision was taken a long time ago, it may be worth revisiting it.
Re: Rust GCC backend: Why and how
#5I find it shocking that 20 years after LLVM was created, gcc still hasn't moved towards modularization of codegen.
Isn't that very much intentional on the part of GCC?
Somewhat. Stallman claims to have tried to make it modular,[0] but also that he wants to avoid "misuse of [the] front ends".[1]
The idea is that you should link the front and back ends, to prevent out-of-process GPL runarounds. But because of that, the mingling of the front and back ends ended up winning out over attempts to stay modular.
[0]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00...
[1]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-01/msg00...
Re: Rust GCC backend: Why and how
#6If the author reads this...
I'd be very interested if the author could provide a post with a more in depth view of the passes, as suggested!
Re: Rust GCC backend: Why and how
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that very much intentional on the part of GCC?
Somewhat. Stallman claims to have tried to make it modular,[0] but also that he wants to avoid "misuse of [the] front ends".[1] The idea is that you should link the front and back ends, to prevent out-of-process GPL runarounds. But because of that, the mingling of the front and back ends ended up winning out over attempts to stay modular. [0]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00... [1]: https…
>> The idea is that you should link the front and back ends, to prevent out-of-process GPL runarounds.
Valid points, but also the reason people wanting to create a more modular compiler created LLVM under a different license - the ultimate GPL runaround. OTOH now we have two big and useful compilers!
Re: Rust GCC backend: Why and how
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that very much intentional on the part of GCC?
Somewhat. Stallman claims to have tried to make it modular,[0] but also that he wants to avoid "misuse of [the] front ends".[1] The idea is that you should link the front and back ends, to prevent out-of-process GPL runarounds. But because of that, the mingling of the front and back ends ended up winning out over attempts to stay modular. [0]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00... [1]: https…
Good lord Stallman is such a zealot and hypocrite. It's not open vs. closed it's mine vs. yours and he's openly declaring that he's nerfing software in order to prevent people from using it in a way he doesn't like. And refusing to talk about it in public because normal people hate that shit "misunderstanding" him.
--- From the post:
I let this drop back in March -- please forgive me.
> Maybe that's the issue for GCC, but for Emacs the issue is to get detailed
> info out of GCC, which is a different problem. My understanding is that
> you're opposed to GCC providing this useful info because that info would
> need to be complete enough to be usable as input to a proprietary
> compiler backend.
I don't want to discuss the details on the list, because I think that would mean 50 messages of misunderstanding and tangents for each message that makes progress. Instead, is there anyone here who would like to work on this in detail?
Re: Rust GCC backend: Why and how
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that very much intentional on the part of GCC?
Somewhat. Stallman claims to have tried to make it modular,[0] but also that he wants to avoid "misuse of [the] front ends".[1] The idea is that you should link the front and back ends, to prevent out-of-process GPL runarounds. But because of that, the mingling of the front and back ends ended up winning out over attempts to stay modular. [0]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00... [1]: https…
That sounds like Stallman wants proprietary OSS ;)
If you're going to make it hard for anyone anywhere to integrate with your open source tooling for fear of commercial projects abusing them and not ever sharing their changes, why even use the GPL license?
Re: Rust GCC backend: Why and how
#10If the author reads this... I'd be very interested if the author could provide a post with a more in depth view of the passes, as suggested!
> Little side-note: If enough people are interested by this topic, I can write a (much) longer explanation of these passes.
Yes, please!