6 ms·

GCC really needs to get it's act together if it wants to not die. Basic things like onboarding and spectating on other people's code being reviewed is pretty ha

by mhh__ 4y ago

GCC really needs to get it's act together if it wants to not die. Basic things like onboarding and spectating on other people's code being reviewed is pretty hard to do from a mailing list. GCC is already basically non-existent in academic research now, although the inner essentials of the compiler are still pretty damn good and is the benchmark for open source compilers, the stuff around the outside is suffering.

edelsohn 4y ago
As policies for academics to own intellectual property and form companies, the license also has come into play. The license also has influenced corporate choices and advocacy for toolchain projects. Documentation and actively encouraging new developers is important, but not the only impact on the project.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
matheusmoreira 4y ago
Pretty interesting history behind the current status quo. Looks like GCC deliberately resisted an interoperable design in an attempt to exclude proprietary code integration. It's only natural that interoperable alternatives would emerge and threaten its dominance. https://lwn.net/Articles/582697/ https://lwn.net/Articles/582697/ > GCC's developers have actively resisted allowing it to be modularized in a way that would allow GCC's internal representation of a program to be read and used by proprietary compilation tools or optimizers. Learning about this changed the way I looked at all GNU software. > Basic things like onboarding and spectating on other people's code being reviewed is pretty hard to do from a mailing list. Participation is even harder. I made some mistakes when I tried to reply to people on the GPG mailing list because I didn't really understand how mailing lists worked. Thankfully a person made a bug report on the issue tracker. I still don't fully understand how they work. Many times I thought twice before getting involved in projects because I don't want to risk accidentally emailing people directly instead of the list thread again.
- mshockwave 4y ago
  > actively resisted allowing it to be modularized and this is exactly the place where LLVM shines.
- astrange 4y ago
  > Pretty interesting history behind the current status quo. Looks like GCC deliberately resisted an interoperable design in an attempt to exclude proprietary code integration. It's only natural that interoperable alternatives would emerge and threaten its dominance. This hasn't been true for at least 10, maybe 15 years. Mailing list development is very traditional; it's what git was initially designed around, with `format-patch` and `am` commands. People moving to Github and PRs is a generational shift thing, like using TikTok.
  - dralley 4y ago
    Stallmann was still putting up this fight until at least a couple of years ago. Maybe a critical mass of people finally told him to fuck off, but if that happened it was within the past 6-8 years.
    - astrange 4y ago
      Doesn't really matter what he wants if he's not on the GCC steering committee. Though I know someone who was fired from being GNU libtool maintainer by Stallman because he developed on a Mac.
- pif 4y ago
  >> GCC's developers have actively resisted allowing it to be modularized [...] > > Learning about this changed the way I looked at all GNU software. It means that you had not yet understood the principle behind free software. I'm not defending Stallman's choice, but it is coherent with the philosophy that gave us FSF and GNU.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    I understand the principles behind free software. I also understand those principles ultimately undermined the most important free software project ever created.

by mhh__ 4y ago

edelsohn 4y ago

As policies for academics to own intellectual property and form companies, the license also has come into play. The license also has influenced corporate choices and advocacy for toolchain projects. Documentation and actively encouraging new developers is important, but not the only impact on the project.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

matheusmoreira 4y ago

Pretty interesting history behind the current status quo. Looks like GCC deliberately resisted an interoperable design in an attempt to exclude proprietary code integration. It's only natural that interoperable alternatives would emerge and threaten its dominance. https://lwn.net/Articles/582697/ https://lwn.net/Articles/582697/ > GCC's developers have actively resisted allowing it to be modularized in a way that would allow GCC's internal representation of a program to be read and used by proprietary compilation tools or optimizers. Learning about this changed the way I looked at all GNU software. > Basic things like onboarding and spectating on other people's code being reviewed is pretty hard to do from a mailing list. Participation is even harder. I made some mistakes when I tried to reply to people on the GPG mailing list because I didn't really understand how mailing lists worked. Thankfully a person made a bug report on the issue tracker. I still don't fully understand how they work. Many times I thought twice before getting involved in projects because I don't want to risk accidentally emailing people directly instead of the list thread again.

mshockwave 4y ago
> actively resisted allowing it to be modularized and this is exactly the place where LLVM shines.
astrange 4y ago
> Pretty interesting history behind the current status quo. Looks like GCC deliberately resisted an interoperable design in an attempt to exclude proprietary code integration. It's only natural that interoperable alternatives would emerge and threaten its dominance. This hasn't been true for at least 10, maybe 15 years. Mailing list development is very traditional; it's what git was initially designed around, with `format-patch` and `am` commands. People moving to Github and PRs is a generational shift thing, like using TikTok.
- dralley 4y ago
  Stallmann was still putting up this fight until at least a couple of years ago. Maybe a critical mass of people finally told him to fuck off, but if that happened it was within the past 6-8 years.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Doesn't really matter what he wants if he's not on the GCC steering committee. Though I know someone who was fired from being GNU libtool maintainer by Stallman because he developed on a Mac.
pif 4y ago
>> GCC's developers have actively resisted allowing it to be modularized [...] > > Learning about this changed the way I looked at all GNU software. It means that you had not yet understood the principle behind free software. I'm not defending Stallman's choice, but it is coherent with the philosophy that gave us FSF and GNU.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  I understand the principles behind free software. I also understand those principles ultimately undermined the most important free software project ever created.