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Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

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Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#161

Post by e12e »

jarjoura wrote: post #140

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…

> 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?

Yes, if you could get together a lot of people you could fork llvm under a different license -- GPL or proprietary. But forking to GPL would a) be a bit rude, and perhaps more importantly b) most likely just be a dead fork. You would have to contribute a fairly significant patch (I can't think of anything that would qualify at this stage of LLVM/Clang maturity) under GPL for "most" to want to use your version.

So, no, they can't practically do that, even if the license permits it.

And at any rate; c) Since the architecture of LLVM allows proprietary extensions, even if Clang/LLVM was under the GPL big changes would be needed to "force" the GPL on things like CUDA compilers etc.

(This is the point that ERS originally raised, arguably with limited knowledge of actual modern architecture of GCC, that GCC is artificially kept monolithic and by extension tied to a technically inferior architecture).

See also:

http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2014-01/msg00181.html http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2014-01/msg00178.html

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#162

Post by sparkie »

shawkinaw wrote: post #149
pmr_ wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 the freedoms of others is going to encourage freedom.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#163

Post by [deleted] »

quenlinlom wrote: post #134
jjoonathan wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#164

Post by gillianseed »

jarjoura wrote: post #140

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…

>Otherwise that work will become extremely hard to maintain when merges do need to happen.

Why would it be hard to maintain when there is a plugin system which allows you to leverage the compiler functionality through a stable API?

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#165

Post by hacknat »

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 didn't mean bad as in poor.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#167

Post by codex »

dman wrote: post #71
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…

When do you think the shift from a non-free to free market happened? What brought it about?

It's a function of the size of the market. When Stallman was programming computers, the number of computers was quite small and it was much more expensive to create software. These days, especially after the PC revolution, creating and modifying software is much cheaper, especially relative to the demand for software, which is much higher.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#168

Post by sdegutis »

quenlinlom wrote: post #136
Codhisattva wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

passes the popcorn

Go back to Reddit. Hacker News isn't a place where you post memetic responses for peer acceptance.

I interpreted what he and I both said as a statement of the pointlessness of this ongoing debate that everyone knows has no end. That seems like an on-topic statement to make on HN, especially if it deters others from jumping on that perpetual bandwagon.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#169

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

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…

I have to agree.

I love free; what doesn't feel "free" to me is the GPL, since I can't use just about anything GPL in my job.

My job involves creating non-free software. Given the GPL's goals, it's not a surprise at all that I can't use it.

But it strikes me as ironic that RMS talks about "freedom" when really he's advocating restricting your freedom to use the software.

I understand it's in pursuance of a "greater goal" of Freedom to modify everything, but the problem is that, in the large, free software sucks, and I don't really want to be responsible for making it good.

Sure you can come up with a dozen really great free software packages (I'm using Firefox to post here, for one, and I make builds using gcc daily and gnu make). But I can come up with a thousand that suck -- and that includes the "best" packages in a number of different categories: Image editing, document editing, development environments (Eclipse has some nice bells and whistles, but that doesn't make it not suck), 3d editing... ALMOST everything with a GUI, browsers being a huge exception. [1]

Those are just the categories I've tried and tried again to make Free software work for me, because I am attracted to the ideal of working with Free software. But every time, the paid/proprietary solution has been so much better than the free solution that I've defected and paid for the proprietary version.

No, I'm not going to use free software to support an ideal. I'm going to pay for software that helps me get my work done faster and better. Because at the end of the day, I appreciate good tools, not ideals.

There may come a day when I try to make my own "free" software project, but if I do, it will be because I really want to make a world class tool in that category, and I feel that the free model is the best for that tool. But I will continue to choose my tools based on what they allow me to do, not their source code license, and the proprietary tools I do use offer me more advantages despite being closed source than their open source equivalents.

[1] Don't bother posting arguments about this or that free software package in these categories. Unless it's brand new and awesome, in which case I might like to try it out. Regardless, one example doesn't change my overall point, and I don't want the thread to devolve into "Gimp is great!" "No it sucks!" -- "Good enough" for one person is not always going to be good enough for another.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#170

Post by codex »

davexunit wrote: post #37
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…

ESR, is that you? All you did was repeat "free market" a bunch of times. Congratulations.

Allow me to continue, then. Stallman's original problem was essentially, "I had a broken car once and I couldn't get the part I needed to repair it. That sucked, so all manufacturers should provide everyone with all the information needed make any replacement part."

In today's world that problem really doesn't exist anymore. Software is a mass market product, and the software that is produced already conforms to what people want pretty well. Sure, I'll take cheaper parts for my car, but on the list of humanity's problems, non-GPL software is very, very low.

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