Re: clang/emacs/ecb/semantic

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

     > Part of the reason why clang/llvm weakens our commnity, compared
     > with GCC, is that the clang front ends can feed their data to
     > nonfree tools.

    Is that true, though?  GCC can produce not only GIMPLE trees but also
    various forms of annotated RTL and dump them to files.

What I am concerned about is _back ends_.  I'm sorry if this
was not sufficiently clear in that once sentence, but I did say
it explicitly before.

GCC RTL dumps are not sufficient to serve as input to a back end.
You can't feed them into a nonfree back end.

I have never heard of GIMPLE trees.  I hope that they are not suitable
for fueling a nonfree back end.

      Ie,
    people can write non-free assemblers that use the assembly output of
    GCC, people can write non-free compilers that target the gas assembly
    language, and so on, all in conformance with the letter of the GPL.

That it is a different issue.  The issue here is combining free
front-ends with nonfree back-ends, and vice versa.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
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