From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:31:59 +0100 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: <87wqgf37n4.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <83d2iqc84m.fsf@gnu.org> <87wqgxkcr9.fsf@yandex.ru> <834n41db0d.fsf@gnu.org> <52FE2985.4070703@yandex.ru> <831tz5daes.fsf@gnu.org> <8738jlohd6.fsf@yandex.ru> <83txc1bl83.fsf@gnu.org> <5300189A.9090208@yandex.ru> <83wqgv9fbj.fsf@gnu.org> <20140216180712.236069f6@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <83sirj9cyp.fsf@gnu.org> <20140217203145.71a849f7@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <837g8t8ouc.fsf@gnu.org> <20140219080524.25689b6b@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <83k3cr58o2.fsf@gnu.org> <530BAEE5.9040004@online.de> <87ppmatkpe.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87wqgfsxsr.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1393580593 3227 80.91.229.3 (28 Feb 2014 09:43:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 09:43:13 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Feb 28 10:43:21 2014 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 1WJJyR-0003fO-Qu for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:43:20 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50059 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WJJyR-0002ao-Ey for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 28 Feb 2014 04:43:19 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:52254) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WJJnp-0004VD-RV for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 28 Feb 2014 04:32:27 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WJJnj-0005Dc-W9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 28 Feb 2014 04:32:21 -0500 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:45524) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WJJnj-0005DL-QL for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 28 Feb 2014 04:32:15 -0500 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WJJng-0005uG-Sl for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:32:12 +0100 Original-Received: from x2f43b62.dyn.telefonica.de ([2.244.59.98]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:32:12 +0100 Original-Received: from dak by x2f43b62.dyn.telefonica.de with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:32:12 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 63 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: x2f43b62.dyn.telefonica.de X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:d4A+JjLwqgsxZNzUSyU82J8vU5I= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 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:169928 Archived-At: "Stephen J. Turnbull" writes: > Richard Stallman writes: > > [[[ 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. ]]] > > > > > This is because LLVM does not try to defend users' freedom at all. > > > > Of course it does. It gives them the choice of using excellent free > > software. > > > > You have misinterpreted my statement. LLVM is free software, but it > > does not defend users' freedom because only copyleft does that. > > That's a nice soundbite, but I'll resist the temptation to disagree > verbosely. > > However, this situation is easily enough changed. The useful programs > from the LLVM project can be forked (AFAIK their license is not > perversely incompatible with the GPL) as GNU projects under the "GPL > v3 or later" permission schema. > > Would you object to that? I'd object, for basically practical reasons. You can fork code, but you cannot fork a community. A fork of the LLVM codebase under the GPLv3 makes only sense if you actually add nontrivial nonseparable components under the GPLv3 or the code base can be just swapped out. If you have nontrivial nonseparable components, but an actively developed important upstream, you need to constantly reintegrate the upstream work in order to keep the edge. Now if the upstream is a weak license like X11, at some point of time the developers might say "that fork is annoying, let's relicense what we have now under BSD with advertising clause and cut off those others". They'll likely retain the majority of their development community but hang out the fork under GPLv3 to dry. That will always be a risk you work with, and the source of that risk is that the principal work is made available under a non-copyleft license. So basically, with an already determined development community, this sort of licensed fork is a non-starter because of not carrying a community with it. Skipping over the problem of _starting_ a new community, we can take a look at the psychological effects of this kind of setup by looking at the OpenOffice/LibreOffice fork. Here we can glance over the non-starter aspect since the fork happened on an existing code base, and the permissively licensed "upstream" (with regard to licensing and thus automatically permitted code flow) got its licensing change considerable time _after_ the fork. The relations between both sides of the fork are strained, and a considerable part of that strain is the asymmetric licensing situation. This strain clearly keeps the communities from intermingling, meaning that many constributors identify with one side of the fork. So an LLVM fork would be a move predictably causing lots of bad blood. It's not like we haven't paid that sort of price quite a few times. But it would also predictably be a move that would lead nowhere. And that's self-defeating. -- David Kastrup