Re: Contributing LLVM.org patches to gud.el

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Liang Wang <netcasper@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 2:40 PM, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>> [[[ 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. ]]]
>>
>>   > LLVM is not meant to kill GCC
>>
>> 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.  That would be a victory for
>> Apple and a defeat for freedom.
>
> At least once, Apple proposed to integrate LLVM as part of GCC.
> https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html

I think they are more or less "meh" about programmers using free
software.  Programmers have to use something, after all, and if somebody
else does the work, so much the better (which explains why they departed
from their entirely homegrown MacOS and jumped on a POSIX platform).

What they are dead set against is _user_ freedom.  They don't mind if
people have great tools to write programs, but they want to be in
control of the software their customers run particularly on devices like
phones.

That's what the GPLv3 is about.  In my opinion, at least the anti-DRM
provisions of the GPLv3 alone would not likely have made much of a
difference regarding whether Apple chooses to adopt or not adopt GCC
since bringing the operation of GCC itself under DRM is unlikely to be
useful to Apple anyway.  I rather think that the implied patent license
is what keeps Apple clean off GPLv3 altogether since its effects extend
beyond the program itself into an area where insane amounts of money can
be made to pass hands for the most ridiculous reasons.

Having this mad tea party table tilted against them might result in a
lot of china crashing in their lap.

At any rate, the GPL always was about "if you use our software, you get
to share it under our conditions or roll your own" and it is entirely
expected that particularly the big players consider "roll your own" a
more predictable choice in business regards.

We won't easily catch the big fish, and our increasing unpredictability
chases away the small ones too.

-- 
David Kastrup