Re: Contributing LLVM.org patches to gud.el

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

[[[ 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. ]]]

You said

  > The distinction here, of course, is that LLVM does not *require* that
  > you link the components together, or indeed, that you use them as
  > a compiler at all.

and then you said

  > I am afraid that I'm having trouble seeing what the ultimate
  > distinction is -- again, LLVM all links together too.

However, from what you said above, LLVM doesn't NECESSARILY all link
together.  That is the point.

Anyway, LLVM is just for comparison.  Since it is not copylefted,
how its parts relate to each other does not affect anything.
The issue applies to GCC.

It is good for the parts of GCC to be modular.  And it is fine for
these modules to be able to link with other programs, too.

What I am worried about is for these modules to be used with nonfree
programs by NOT linking them together.  That that would lead
to proprietary use which ultimately is bad for users' freedom.

I prioritize users' freedom above technical merit, and that's why I
wrote GCC.  If not for that, I wouldn't have had to write a C compiler
at all -- I could have used one of the proprietary ones.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.