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Extracting the abstract syntax tree from GCC

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Re: Extracting the abstract syntax tree from GCC

#41

Post by kps »

falcolas wrote: post #37
tacos wrote: post #13

He played this game with precompiled headers a decade ago and there's STILL barely any support for it in the GNU tools. When a debate around implementing precompiled headers ten years after everyone else gets them requires lawyers to get involved, maybe freedom isn't ringing as clearly as we were promised. There's something fundamentally weird about the whole dev ecosystem wrt developer productivity. Next time you're…

Because RMS' stance has nothing to do with your productivity, and has everything to do with giving you the right to look at every single detail of GCC and make it work better for yourself. If he did open it up for a proprietary component to make its way into GCC (while avoiding the licensing terms), and it becomes mainstream, you have lost that right to view and modify the software that runs on your box, and that is…

> the right to look at every single detail of GCC and make it work better for yourself.

And yet, the referenced discussion breaks down into RMS on one side and people who want to make gcc work better for themselves on the other.

Re: Extracting the abstract syntax tree from GCC

#42

Post by hga »

sanxiyn wrote: post #38
hga wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure no one is working hard to fix that right now because GCC does, and for many many more backends, especially solidly. We'll really know things are at a tipping point when LLVM starts to acquire a bunch of solid back ends. I will personally count it as all over if/when Atmel AVR 8 bit is supported.

Preliminary port of LLVM to AVR does exist. http://sourceforge.net/projects/avr-llvm/

That effort died roughly a year and a half ago, but it's been forked, e.g.: https://github.com/dylanmckay/avr-llvm

So, yeah, I should gather my robes and prepare to deliver a Biblical "Repent, sinner, for the end is nigh!"

Re: Extracting the abstract syntax tree from GCC

#44

Post by sesutton »

Its hard for me to come up with a way in which this is not RMS advocating restricting the freedom of users of GCC.

If he is so opposed to proprietary software using GCC output why not use a license that prohibits that? Its not even too late for new versions since the FSF owns the copyright to all GCC code.

Re: Extracting the abstract syntax tree from GCC

#45

Post by falcolas »

dalke wrote: post #29
jordigh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fear that someone else might be "better" than you so you're intentionally going to make it impossible for them to even compete is a really dumb argument. Imagine if this was done in sports. It is done in sports. Most sports forbid you from taking drugs that enhance your performance, or are seggregated by sex in order to account for the "natural" (?) unequal distribution of muscular mass across sexes, because we…

"if you take code, you must give back code." That's not the intention. It's a forward mechanism, not a backwards one. If you distribute code to person/company/entity X then you must also distribute the source code, or provide a way for X to get the source code. If you make changes but never distribute the code then you don't need to distribute your modified code to anyone. If you only provide a service then you don't…

While incidentally true and pursuant to his real goal, I don't believe this is his ultimate goal. His goal is, and always has been, to make sure that you as the user of the software built upon his work, are always capable of opening it up and looking under the hood, and making adjustments as you see fit.

Throw a proprietory module on the end which relies on his work but gets around the GPL, and you've lost that right. That's not acceptable to him.

Re: Extracting the abstract syntax tree from GCC

#47

Post by falcolas »

kps wrote: post #41
falcolas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because RMS' stance has nothing to do with your productivity, and has everything to do with giving you the right to look at every single detail of GCC and make it work better for yourself. If he did open it up for a proprietary component to make its way into GCC (while avoiding the licensing terms), and it becomes mainstream, you have lost that right to view and modify the software that runs on your box, and that is…

> the right to look at every single detail of GCC and make it work better for yourself. And yet, the referenced discussion breaks down into RMS on one side and people who want to make gcc work better for themselves on the other.

> And yet, the referenced discussion breaks down into RMS on one side and people who want to make gcc work better for themselves on the other.

At the risk of someone building a closed backend off an artifact of the GCC frontend; at the risk of someone profiting off RMS' work without following his conditions for making that work free.

It's important to remember that he isn't against Emacs getting the information it needs to do its work. In fact, this mirrors a common discussion in computer security, and system administration in general: you give applications and users only the permission they need, to protect against bad actors. If Emacs doesn't need the full AST, why would you give it to them?

Re: Extracting the abstract syntax tree from GCC

#49

Post by overgard »

sesutton wrote: post #44

Its hard for me to come up with a way in which this is not RMS advocating restricting the freedom of users of GCC. If he is so opposed to proprietary software using GCC output why not use a license that prohibits that? Its not even too late for new versions since the FSF owns the copyright to all GCC code.

That's the great irony of the copyleft movement -- it's about restricting what people can do under the guise of "freedom". RMS doesn't want people to "misuse" his software, but his version of misuse is "use it for a purpose that doesn't advance GNU." He's willing to cripple his software so that some theoretical entity that doesn't actually exist and does not agree with his politics can't misuse it.

On a practical level, if people wanted to execute that particular "misuse" (IE use it in non-GPL software, which I would just call a "use"), they would obviously use clang. Clang is basically better at this point anyway.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that RMS is a nutcase.

Re: Extracting the abstract syntax tree from GCC

#50

Post by falcolas »

sesutton wrote: post #44

Its hard for me to come up with a way in which this is not RMS advocating restricting the freedom of users of GCC. If he is so opposed to proprietary software using GCC output why not use a license that prohibits that? Its not even too late for new versions since the FSF owns the copyright to all GCC code.

> why not use a license that prohibits that

He is opposed to proprietary software using his code which he gave to the world on the condition that it, and derivative work, remains open for its users to view and modify.

The work belongs to the FSF, so it's ultimately their decision what happens with it, in pursuit of the goal of software which you can legally inspect and modify for yourself.

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