From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: clang vs free software Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:06:27 -0500 Message-ID: References: <87fvqtg02v.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <87sitkzahs.fsf@yandex.ru> <52D7DAAB.2070709@yandex.ru> <52D81960.2080408@yandex.ru> <52DA8C17.4080707@yandex.ru> <52DC00E5.3020803@yandex.ru> <52DC6A26.3020003@yandex.ru> <87k3dv9z85.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87eh439w1n.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87ha8yqvup.fsf@engster.org> <87r47zezcc.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <52E448A0.6010405@dancol.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1390766790 1319 80.91.229.3 (26 Jan 2014 20:06:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:06:30 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eller.helmut@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Daniel Colascione Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jan 26 21:06:34 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 1W7VyT-0003TK-J8 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 26 Jan 2014 21:06:33 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56180 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W7VyT-0005FD-4I for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:06:33 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:55606) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W7VyP-0005Em-Lu for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:06:30 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W7VyO-0003VG-H2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:06:29 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([208.118.235.10]:37791) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W7VyO-0003VC-F2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:06:28 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W7VyN-0002QE-Rr; Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:06:27 -0500 In-reply-to: <52E448A0.6010405@dancol.org> (message from Daniel Colascione on Sat, 25 Jan 2014 15:28:32 -0800) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 208.118.235.10 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:169143 Archived-At: [[[ 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. ]]] > We don't want to make a program's entire AST available for parsing > because that would make it easy to extend GCC with proprietary > programs. It would also have made it easy to add modern features to Emacs and other free editors. Symbol table information is flatly inadequate given that in modern languages, typing information is highly contextual. You seem to have interpreted "symbol table information" in the narrowest possible way. Try a broader interpretation, please. Free software is great, but if nobody uses it, the entire enterprise is futile, sad, and ultimately irrelevant. Free software is equally futile, sad, and irrelevant if everyone uses it...as a base for nonfree software. You mention the threat that GCC might be superseded. That is real. But the threat that GCC might become a base for nonfree software is also real -- and has been real for 25 years. This sad irrelevance could have happened decades ago if we had not taken care to prevent it. I saw it close up when I met with Jobs at Next, and he asked me if they could distribute their Objective C front end as binaries and let the user link it with the .o files of GCC. For freedom's sake I had to find a path between those two threats. I think I have done a pretty good job; but ultimately Jobs dedicated the resources of a powerful company that hates freedom to fighting us. Perhaps there was a better way to do it. I am not perfect as a strategist, after all. But you can't find a better way to avoid both threats unless you recognize them both. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.