Posted Nov 20, 2007 15:12 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: GCC unplugged by Lev
Parent article: GCC unplugged
This *was* from seven years ago, and RMS's attitude is slowly evolving in this area (since it
was obvious that a rigid approach to this would make it nearly impossible to do
cross-translation-unit optimizations properly; the compiler has to be able to write out
intermediate state in some form).
Posted Nov 21, 2007 19:44 UTC (Wed) by landley (guest, #6789)
[Link]
Are you aware of a single instance where Stallman got _more_ flexible with
time, instead of less?
I'm honestly curious. Examples, please?
GCC unplugged
Posted Nov 22, 2007 0:41 UTC (Thu) by gdt (subscriber, #6284)
[Link]
Two examples that spring to mind: the output of
Bison
can be used in non-free programs; and support for the GPL to BSD license change of
Ogg Vorbis.
I am sure there are more.
GCC unplugged
Posted Nov 22, 2007 10:15 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Well, there's the case we were just discussing: RMS shifted from a strict 'no
non-FSF-copyrighted code in GCC' to allowing it for ecj; he shifted from a 'no writing out
internals' to allowing it for link-time optimizations... he's not completely dogmatic: if the
choice is between useful free software that incorporates stuff copyrighted by other people or
makes things easy for GPL violations, and between free software that lags behind and is
outcompeted by other stuff, he has a track record of not taking the route that will kill the
free software.
You just have to convince him that this will happen unless he bends, which is kind of hard.
(Part of this is probably the perfectly normal pride-in-project: nobody wants to see something
they started get thrashed by something else if it can be avoided.)