From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?R=FCdiger?= Sonderfeld Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: clang vs free software Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 17:35:02 +0100 Message-ID: <1717629.oKfCLOpNI4@descartes> References: <87fvqtg02v.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <87r47zezcc.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1390494956 31536 80.91.229.3 (23 Jan 2014 16:35:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 16:35:56 +0000 (UTC) Cc: David Kastrup To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jan 23 17:36:03 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 1W6NG6-0001rW-JH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 17:36:02 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42118 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W6NG6-0004d6-5e for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 11:36:02 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:56449) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W6NFd-0004Ac-Ki for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 11:35:41 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W6NFW-00058l-Pi for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 11:35:32 -0500 Original-Received: from ptmx.org ([178.63.28.110]:60733) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W6NFP-00055z-F9; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 11:35:19 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ptmx.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ECBC125076; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 17:35:17 +0100 (CET) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at ptmx.org Original-Received: from ptmx.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (ptmx.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id GZjAAr+pjFKP; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 17:35:16 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from descartes.localnet (chello080108246092.7.14.vie.surfer.at [80.108.246.92]) by ptmx.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 6CD162506C; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 17:35:16 +0100 (CET) User-Agent: KMail/4.11.3 (Linux/3.11.0-14-generic; KDE/4.11.3; x86_64; ; ) In-Reply-To: <87r47zezcc.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 178.63.28.110 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:168964 Archived-At: On Thursday 23 January 2014 12:01:39 David Kastrup wrote: > 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. = ]]] > >=20 > > There exist now various packages integrating emacs will element= s of > > clang. > > =20 > > These packages are not supporting clang as alternative compile= r.=20 > > Rather > > =20 > > by exploiting clang interfaces that have no gcc analog they off= er > > exciting > > IDE-like features. > >=20 > > They nonetheless encourage people to switch from GCC to Clang. The= > > features may be useful but this way of providing them hurts our cau= se. >=20 > Which brings us back to the question: what would be required to provi= de > them via GCC or other GNU software? If nobody bothers with even > considering the question, it would appear that it is not all that > important... AFAIK there have been several attempts to make the AST or GCC frontend = more=20 easily available (e.g., gcc-xml) and there have been several discussion= s on=20 the GCC mailing lists about this. But all attempts were blocked by the= fear=20 that this might be abused by non-free software. I personally think it was the wrong decision because it did hurt free s= oftware=20 IDEs and tools, which would have benefited a lot from having a C++ fron= tend=20 easily available. Non-free software developers usually could afford no= n-free=20 frontends such as EDG. Now many free software IDEs and tools seem to start using or are develo= ped=20 around using libclang. Which will promote clang over GCC in the long r= un. I=20 hope that the FSF and GCC developers change their position on this issu= e. The=20 risk that non-free software might abuse such a move seems to have been=20= significantly reduced due to libclang's license being friendly to non-f= ree=20 software. Regards, R=C3=BCdiger