4 ms·

> Is it bad I just don't care that LLVM has enabled non-free software? Because it has done a hck of a lot for opensource software.* This presents an interestin

by lmkg 13y ago

> Is it bad I just don't care that LLVM has enabled non-free software? Because it has done a hck of a lot for opensource software.* This presents an interesting (to RMS) quandary. I take it as a given that he prioritizes the freedom of software over its technical merits (as discussed in other threads). But, even just from the freedom perspective: LLVM increases the amount of proprietary software produced, and also increases the amount of free software produced. Does RMS consider this a worthwhile trade-off? Or does he think that less software overall, and less free software in particular, is favorable to more free software existing and also some proprietary software.

dragonwriter 13y ago
RMS appears to believe that the creation and distribution of non-Free software is a categorical and unscionable evil, such that anything that anything that encourages it (whatever other benefits it provides) is categorically morally wrong, and anything that discourages it is categorically morally obligatory.
- ZeroGravitas 13y ago
  There a bunch of facts that contradict this, e.g. the exstance of the LGPL, RMS supporting BSD licencing of Xiph codecs etc. His approach is a lot more nuanced and tactical than it is often portrayed.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > There a bunch of facts that contradict this, e.g. the exstance of the LGPL, RMS supporting BSD licencing of Xiph codecs etc. Those don't actually contradict it in any way that I can see. > His approach is a lot more nuanced and tactical than it is often portrayed. Sure. That doesn't mean that the long-term goal isn't as I've described it (and, in fact, RMS has pretty explicitly said it is for him, though that may or may not be true of the FSF.)
    - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
      The LGPL is explicitly designed to allow non-free software to be created that uses the code under that licence, and it was created by RMS. He supported BSD licences for Xiph codecs because he recognised the impact of network effects, You claim that both these thing are considered "evil", "unconscionable" and "categorically wrong" by him regardless of whatever benefits they create. Clearly RMS disagrees, and is happy to use them as tools to achieve his long term goals in specific circumstances.
- belorn 13y ago
  In the context of compilers, the harm of non-free compilers are not just speculations. The EU came down with large fines against intel when they did anti-competitive behavior in their compiler. If the intel compiler had been provided with source and under a free license, this anti-competitive harm could not have happened.
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
RMS is a proprietary software obscurantist in general and goes as far as opposing that proprietary software even be mentioned as an alternative. He makes a lot of good points and is very aware, but his extreme ideological dedication is what drives people off. Which is a shame, because he's done a lot to convince and further adoption of free software in government and education, plus there's plenty of things one can learn from him.
ygra 13y ago
He even touches that directly: > The existence of LLVM is a terrible setback for our community precisely because it is not copylefted and can be used as the basis for nonfree compilers -- so that all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us. ... which pretty much is the answer to your last question.
- thinkpad20 13y ago
  He assumes that helping proprietary software is a bad thing (well, more accurately, he asserts this axiomatically). However, proprietary software can have many benefits. Many if not most successful software businesses have made great contributions to open-source and the development of free software. I know for a fact that a huge amount of linux development is driven by for-profit companies. If a company can make a profit, make an excellent product, and pay it forward by contributing to open projects as well, it sounds like a win-win to me. This might violate RMS's axiom that only free software is good, but as Hitchens says, "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
- lmkg 13y ago
  You're right, I had missed some of the implications of that statement. Basically, he considers the additional free software created to be a negative rather than a positive, because it gives an even bigger benefit to proprietary software.
gillianseed 13y ago
>Or does he think that less software overall, and less free software in particular, is favorable to more free software existing and also some proprietary software. You can create proprietary software _with_ GCC just fine, and he has never proposed any measures with which to impose any restrictions on the final output binaries you create with GCC so I don't really follow your reasoning. The 'problem' with LLVM from his view is that it is easy to incorporate into proprietary software, as well as easy to use in conjunction with proprietary software (through plugins for instance), which means that there is potentially much less incentive to contribute your code back when it's easy to maintain it in proprietary form, which then leads to less 'free' software. His cynicism has a tendency to come true, so it will be interesting to see if LLVM open source development will continue to flourish or if we will see a slow but steady transition of 'real improvements' happening in proprietary plugins or forked versions rather than contributed back to the open source project. In some ways we might be seeing it already, last time I heard (which was in september IIRC), Apple had not contributed their A7 support to the open source versions of Clang/LLVM, and are instead keeping it proprietary and only available on the Clang/LLVM versions they ship with XCode on their OSX platform.

by lmkg 13y ago

dragonwriter 13y ago

RMS appears to believe that the creation and distribution of non-Free software is a categorical and unscionable evil, such that anything that anything that encourages it (whatever other benefits it provides) is categorically morally wrong, and anything that discourages it is categorically morally obligatory.

ZeroGravitas 13y ago
There a bunch of facts that contradict this, e.g. the exstance of the LGPL, RMS supporting BSD licencing of Xiph codecs etc. His approach is a lot more nuanced and tactical than it is often portrayed.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > There a bunch of facts that contradict this, e.g. the exstance of the LGPL, RMS supporting BSD licencing of Xiph codecs etc. Those don't actually contradict it in any way that I can see. > His approach is a lot more nuanced and tactical than it is often portrayed. Sure. That doesn't mean that the long-term goal isn't as I've described it (and, in fact, RMS has pretty explicitly said it is for him, though that may or may not be true of the FSF.)
  - ZeroGravitas 13y ago
    The LGPL is explicitly designed to allow non-free software to be created that uses the code under that licence, and it was created by RMS. He supported BSD licences for Xiph codecs because he recognised the impact of network effects, You claim that both these thing are considered "evil", "unconscionable" and "categorically wrong" by him regardless of whatever benefits they create. Clearly RMS disagrees, and is happy to use them as tools to achieve his long term goals in specific circumstances.
belorn 13y ago
In the context of compilers, the harm of non-free compilers are not just speculations. The EU came down with large fines against intel when they did anti-competitive behavior in their compiler. If the intel compiler had been provided with source and under a free license, this anti-competitive harm could not have happened.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

RMS is a proprietary software obscurantist in general and goes as far as opposing that proprietary software even be mentioned as an alternative. He makes a lot of good points and is very aware, but his extreme ideological dedication is what drives people off. Which is a shame, because he's done a lot to convince and further adoption of free software in government and education, plus there's plenty of things one can learn from him.

ygra 13y ago

He even touches that directly: > The existence of LLVM is a terrible setback for our community precisely because it is not copylefted and can be used as the basis for nonfree compilers -- so that all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us. ... which pretty much is the answer to your last question.

thinkpad20 13y ago
He assumes that helping proprietary software is a bad thing (well, more accurately, he asserts this axiomatically). However, proprietary software can have many benefits. Many if not most successful software businesses have made great contributions to open-source and the development of free software. I know for a fact that a huge amount of linux development is driven by for-profit companies. If a company can make a profit, make an excellent product, and pay it forward by contributing to open projects as well, it sounds like a win-win to me. This might violate RMS's axiom that only free software is good, but as Hitchens says, "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
lmkg 13y ago
You're right, I had missed some of the implications of that statement. Basically, he considers the additional free software created to be a negative rather than a positive, because it gives an even bigger benefit to proprietary software.

gillianseed 13y ago

>Or does he think that less software overall, and less free software in particular, is favorable to more free software existing and also some proprietary software. You can create proprietary software _with_ GCC just fine, and he has never proposed any measures with which to impose any restrictions on the final output binaries you create with GCC so I don't really follow your reasoning. The 'problem' with LLVM from his view is that it is easy to incorporate into proprietary software, as well as easy to use in conjunction with proprietary software (through plugins for instance), which means that there is potentially much less incentive to contribute your code back when it's easy to maintain it in proprietary form, which then leads to less 'free' software. His cynicism has a tendency to come true, so it will be interesting to see if LLVM open source development will continue to flourish or if we will see a slow but steady transition of 'real improvements' happening in proprietary plugins or forked versions rather than contributed back to the open source project. In some ways we might be seeing it already, last time I heard (which was in september IIRC), Apple had not contributed their A7 support to the open source versions of Clang/LLVM, and are instead keeping it proprietary and only available on the Clang/LLVM versions they ship with XCode on their OSX platform.