From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jordi =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Guti=E9rrez?= Hermoso Newsgroups: gmane.comp.gcc.devel,gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: clang and FSF's strategy Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 09:33:04 -0500 Message-ID: <1390401184.29263.5.camel@Iris> References: <20140121201949.21DE1380522@snark.thyrsus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1390401194 2512 80.91.229.3 (22 Jan 2014 14:33:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 14:33:14 +0000 (UTC) Cc: rms@gnu.org, gcc@gcc.gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Eric S. Raymond" Original-X-From: gcc-return-181663-gcc=m.gmane.org@gcc.gnu.org Wed Jan 22 15:33:21 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcc@plane.gmane.org Original-Received: from server1.sourceware.org ([209.132.180.131] helo=sourceware.org) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1W5yro-0004J5-VV for gcc@plane.gmane.org; Wed, 22 Jan 2014 15:33:21 +0100 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gcc.gnu.org; h=list-id :list-unsubscribe:list-archive:list-post:list-help:sender :message-id:subject:from:to:cc:date:in-reply-to:references :content-type:mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s= default; b=gAgrXsn3ueEqnW8aeT7nKo/zCkvBWuq9ZCezH29x0jms1j0/u/vK0 pc+erL/qKmX27N0UIWPvnO1rzXipXpwafpCPa0soYb5sN4kzvEaERdY6fE5+HY/z 4RU6WckhGHo5lmKXLxFtKmW9WrUx+orfA8f3zbDh/17/DFieb95S9E= DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=gcc.gnu.org; h=list-id :list-unsubscribe:list-archive:list-post:list-help:sender :message-id:subject:from:to:cc:date:in-reply-to:references :content-type:mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; s=default; bh=tmy50EIM3hIjGY66mqhtKx+lcf8=; b=Vg6vMNmrUMB17S0E0sjPWcxr0ogt 4Kp3i0Rqn2UzL9/vmwp9lbf41TqCsZNP1LSu/+FjIx0nqU3MYB+rBsZb4U13QBZY 7mbdpeajvDZChoJhvXVOHuG0QnUCapb3LasAtSFpv79pBY5rvGDw+cOaKlLaiW6S UIERHzQETIznGj8= Original-Received: (qmail 5489 invoked by alias); 22 Jan 2014 14:33:16 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Original-Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org Original-Received: (qmail 5474 invoked by uid 89); 22 Jan 2014 14:33:15 -0000 Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; auth=none X-Virus-Found: No X-Spam-SWARE-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,RP_MATCHES_RCVD,SPF_PASS autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 X-HELO: fencepost.gnu.org Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org (HELO fencepost.gnu.org) (208.118.235.10) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.93/v0.84-503-g423c35a) with (AES256-SHA encrypted) ESMTPS; Wed, 22 Jan 2014 14:33:08 +0000 Original-Received: from beast.bic.mni.mcgill.ca ([132.206.178.199]:60884 helo=[IPv6:::1]) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W5yrZ-0003ew-OO; Wed, 22 Jan 2014 09:33:05 -0500 In-Reply-To: <20140121201949.21DE1380522@snark.thyrsus.com> Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.gcc.devel:134107 gmane.emacs.devel:168891 Archived-At: On Tue, 2014-01-21 at 15:19 -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > Therefore, I point out that FSF can no longer prevent proprietary > vendors from plugging into a free compiler to improve their tools. [snip] > I also think it bears noticing that nobody outside of Microsoft seems > to particularly want to write proprietary compilers any more. The FSF sure can prevent it, and proprietary compilers still thrive. Here is one that particularly bugs me as an Octave developer: we routinely see people being lured to use Nvidia's non-free nvcc for GPU computing, which they gleefully admit is based on clang and LLVM. And there is Xcode, of course, completely non-free and completely based on clang and LLVM. The fact that these non-free tools are not based on gcc are a testament to how proprietary software developers cannot plug into gcc, and how clang is fostering non-free software. The nvidia situation is particularly dire becuase today, free GPU computing is almost nonexistent. It's almost all based on CUDA and nvidia's massive pro-CUDA marketing campaign. Even most OpenCL implementations are non-free, and the scant few free implementations of OpenCL that exist are not fully functional. We also have technical reasons in Octave to not use LLVM, even though we are using it right now: its API is hugely unstable. Each new LLVM release has needed its own new, complicated autoconf checks. We have been chatting with Red Hat's David Malcolm who works on libgccjit to help us get something better and more stable. This thus proves that it is not impossible to use gcc for the same tasks as LLVM, and its pluggability is growing. - Jordi G. H.