From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Perry E. Metzger" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 12:39:08 -0500 Message-ID: <20150108123908.63cd12ca@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> References: <83bnxuzyl4.fsf@gnu.org> <87vbkovhh7.fsf@engster.org> <87387rvobr.fsf@engster.org> <83ppat84hk.fsf@gnu.org> <20150106143933.0090bc83@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> <83r3v77ij6.fsf@gnu.org> <20150106154539.3d0752c4@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> <87wq4ype3z.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <20150108083211.5a85a077@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1420741262 11280 80.91.229.3 (8 Jan 2015 18:21:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 18:21:02 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eliz@gnu.org, David Kastrup , Richard Stallman , deng@randomsample.de, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jan 08 19:20:56 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Y9Hh1-0001lW-P7 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 08 Jan 2015 19:20:24 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47555 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y9Hh0-00017S-Ur for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 08 Jan 2015 13:20:22 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:34177) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y9H3L-0001y7-PK for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 08 Jan 2015 12:39:29 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y9H3C-0008IZ-Nd for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 08 Jan 2015 12:39:23 -0500 Original-Received: from hacklheber.piermont.com ([2001:470:30:84:e276:63ff:fe62:3400]:43075) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y9H38-0008GC-Ft; Thu, 08 Jan 2015 12:39:10 -0500 Original-Received: from snark.cb.piermont.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by hacklheber.piermont.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B6E6014D1; Thu, 8 Jan 2015 12:39:09 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from jabberwock.cb.piermont.com (jabberwock.cb.piermont.com [10.160.2.107]) by snark.cb.piermont.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 30E2F2DE9E9; Thu, 8 Jan 2015 12:39:09 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.10.1 (GTK+ 2.24.25; x86_64-apple-darwin14.0.0) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 2001:470:30:84:e276:63ff:fe62:3400 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:181070 Archived-At: On Thu, 08 Jan 2015 09:26:08 -0500 Stefan Monnier wrote: > > The long term result of all of this may very well be to do > > exactly the opposite of what you want -- to convince compiler > > researchers that LLVM is the only serious platform for their > > work, and even worse, to convince developers in general that free > > software is too hard to use and that non-free software is the way > > for them to get their work done. > > Let's not forget that LLVM is Free. It's not as Free as GCC since > it doesn't use a copyleft license, but it's not proprietary. Yes. I was referring more to the young hackers who are starting to use proprietary IDEs in preference to open editors because of the lack of modern tooling in Emacs. > > I think most of us understand the issue as you see it. I think the > > distinction is that most of us believe the trade-off is > > important. Yes, this may indeed mean that some proprietary > > software ends up being based on GCC just as some proprietary > > software is based on GNU/Linux, but the overall impact will be > > positive, and the risk is much lower than the reward. > > I think this "much" is an understatement. Indeed. I hope RMS understands that we do indeed appreciate that people will probably then base some proprietary programs on GCC and that we don't like this, but that we believe the trade-off is very important, and that the bad result probably cannot be prevented. That is to say: the bad part of this likely cannot be prevented, but by not permitting modular use of GCC we could act to prevent a good result as well (that is, we could prevent Emacs from being able to provide modern IDE features), and *that* would be a tragedy. There is also a significant opportunity here that could be lost. If GCC were modular, but the best libraries for dealing with the intermediate data formats like the AST were GPLed, then code linked to those libraries would be GPLed. Yes, one could do a non-free re-implementation of such libraries as well, but one can also build a whole new compiler that isn't GPLed (LLVM, anyone?) If you tempt people with good functionality, the path of least resistance will be to bring more software under the GPL mantle, not less. Perry -- Perry E. Metzger perry@piermont.com