Extracting the abstract syntax tree from GCC

So much precious, expert developer time which could have been spent writing code... discussions are required, but there comes a point where the answer becomes... Just Fork.

Fork Emacs, fork GCC, both, switch to LLVM,... doesn't matter: whatever it takes to finally allow Emacs to express its potential and catch-up as an IDE, bringing it to the level where (free) Eclipse was... decades ago (for Java, not for C/C++). Quick before it loses its user and developer base. Developers always follow the best fork quickly, and soon after distributions and users do too. The github way; fork button on every page (good bzr is already gone). Leave the politics behind. "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code".

If you don't want to hurt feelings, don't call it a fork. Call it "a branch for prototyping new ideas, temporarily breaking away from [ideological] licencing restrictions to facilitate experimentation. We'll be back soon, I promise". Something like that. Avoid full names like YEmacs :-)

PS: thanks for the amazingly clear summary. Great illustration (in reverse) of Blaise Pascal's "shorter letter" quote. One of these LWN articles which makes you feel like it _alone_ is worth your subscription.