From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric S. Raymond" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Contributing LLVM.org patches to gud.el Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2015 19:15:27 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20150208001527.GA30292@thyrsus.com> References: <87mw4rxkzv.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1423354577 27445 80.91.229.3 (8 Feb 2015 00:16:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2015 00:16:17 +0000 (UTC) Cc: dak@gnu.org, Stefan Monnier , slewsys@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Richard Stallman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Feb 08 01:16:16 2015 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 1YKFXr-0007D7-Pu for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 08 Feb 2015 01:16:15 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55072 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKFXq-00032k-OE for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 07 Feb 2015 19:16:14 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:52497) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKFXf-00032U-5E for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Feb 2015 19:16:04 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKFXe-0002K4-1e for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Feb 2015 19:16:03 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5]:40261 helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKFXa-0002Jj-Eu; Sat, 07 Feb 2015 19:15:58 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id E1D0DC00A6; Sat, 7 Feb 2015 19:15:27 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 71.162.243.5 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:182624 Archived-At: Richard Stallman : > More precisely, Apple intends LLVM and Clang to make GCC cease to be a > signal success and a reason for all sorts of companies to work on a > compiler that always gives users freedom. This is silly. Apple couldn't care less whether or not GCC is a success. What Apple needs is for a copylefted compiler not to be the *only* success. GCC's existence does not prevent Apple from compiling proprietary GPU code. The absence of a realistic *alternative* to GCC prevented that, but having fixed that problem Apple has no reason to care whether GCC lives or dies. As David Kastrup notes, the existence of the clang project is victory - it's Apple conceding in practice that it is no longer realistically possible to develop some kinds of critically important tools in a proprietary lockup. As a result of this victory, all sorts of companies are now working on *two* compilers that always give users freedom. One is GCC. The other is clang (I haven't noticed my freedom being diminished even a little bit when I set CC=clang). That is a good thing. Apple is not composed of angels. Apple does things that you and I would both regard as scummy. But to suppose that Apple has any desire, need, or intention to attack GCC is to attribute an importance to GCC in Apple's eyes that it has not possessed since the day clang shipped 1.0. -- Eric S. Raymond