9 ms·

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

81 points by microtherion 13y ago

taspeotis 13y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7116144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7116144
pjmlp 13y ago
In a way I kind of agree with him. On one way, it is clear that pure GPL software is not a way for whole industry to function. Taken to the extreme, 100% GPL software, from what would software developers live from? Not all use cases can be applied to support, training or selling hardware. On the other had the other open source licenses, promote the freedom of the software developer, but not the end user. Which is usually of no importance when the end user is a plain user. However developers are also end users from the products of others. I grew up in culture, where we had to pay for every piece of software we used, except if we typed it ourselves from code listinings in magazines. So in one extreme we have the everything free model, and in the other we have the old model. Currently we seem to be more or less in the middle. I just wonder to which direction will the balance change.
- gjulianm 13y ago
  You can still get paid for building free software. For example, take a employee management program that needs to be catered to the specific needs of each company. You still get paid for those adaptations + deployment the same you'd get paid with closed source software.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    That falls under the support part I mentioned.
    - gjulianm 13y ago
      Bad example. But what I tried to say is that, if a company needs you to build software, you will get paid regardless of the final license of the work.
      - pjmlp 13y ago
        What about all persons that use computers in a 100% GPL world? Home users, for example.
- drdaeman 13y ago
  > 100% GPL software, from what would software developers live from? As usual, from their craft, the software development. GPL-everything scenario doesn't mean there won't be need to develop software anymore. It is quite usual to be paid to hack upon FLOSS code. Neither it seem too weird to be paid to write new FLOSS projects. A customer needs a solution and has money, an engineer has skills and needs money. The only downside (or upside, depending on point of view) is that developers won't be able to make $0.99-priced apps unless they really make it in mere minutes of their time. They'll have to raise funding using some form of threshold pledge system.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    The problem with a pledge system is that my $.99 on it's own won't make or break the project and since I'm getting the software for free anyway it's more rational to keep the money in my pocket. So you would have to impose it as some sort of tax, which has it's own problems.
    - danieldk 13y ago
      On the other hand, you also know that if everyone applies the same reasoning, the project will not be completed, and your loss is probably greater than $.99.
      - jiggy2011 13y ago
        The problem is that most others will apply the same reasoning regardless of whether I pay my $.99 or not.
    - boomlinde 13y ago
      Your argument is based on the idea that people make rational decisions.
      - jiggy2011 13y ago
        It tends to be difficult to get people to spend money without something in return.
- belorn 13y ago
  > Taken to the extreme, 100% GPL software, from what would software developers live from? From people who pay them to develop software that they need? Last time I saw statistics on the subject, developers paid to code for internal use was still more common that developers working on software meant for the public. But lets disregard that, and only look on the proprietary model. You trade software for money, and then you threaten them with lawsuit and jail if the customer share or modify the work. Can we have a software industry without the threat of lawsuit hanging above every customers head?
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  Another problem is that the GPL is quite easy to circunvent (that's why the cloud is big), but Affero is a horribly restrictive, and quite probably illegal in nearly the entire world (copyright laws are very similar). You know, I'm under the impression that nearly all of the current problems would simply go away if copyrights duration was reduced to a sane amount. But one of those problems is that there is a set of incompetent people with way more power than they deserve, and those people won't help fix it.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
    How do you think would the AGPL be illegal? As for reducing the duration of copyright: I am not sure, binaries without source that you are allowed to disassemble still aren't anywhere near source code, don't you think?
- davidgerard 13y ago
  Almost no developer works on shrinkwrapped software sold as proprietary. Such developers are a tiny minority.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    People buying desktop software and games think otherwise.
    - davidgerard 13y ago
      Thus demonstrating the difference between anecdote and statistics.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
codeflo 13y ago
I'm still quite convinced by the idea of software freedom, as explained in Stallman's earlier writings: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html Having said that, I find Stallman's war rhetoric increasingly disturbing: > The only code that helps us and not our adversaries is copylefted code. Free software released under a pushover license is available for us to use, but available to our adversaries just as well. This is the language of war propaganda, and shouldn't have any place in rational discussions. > If that enables GCC to "win", the victory would be hollow, because it would not be a victory for what really matters: users' freedom. All while endorsing the Affero GPL, a license that doesn't even allow users full control over their own servers. Maybe if someone is that convinced of a cause, the ends seem to justify every means. I'm not sure what's going on at the FSF, but it seems that they've lost sight of some of their original principles.
- bjourne 13y ago
  Isn't it you who are being irrational? That closed source software is the adversary of free software has been the fsf's position for ages. I see no war propaganda and "adversary" is not a synonym to "enemy."
  - stephenr 13y ago
    Software doesn't have adversaries - people do. Open source and commercial and "free" software are no more adversaries than vanilla and chocolate ice cream are adversaries. As Steve jobs pointed out in (I believe) the late 90s - "Microsoft doesn't have to lose for us to win". Software is binary, the culture and mindset around it shouldn't be.
    - mjn 13y ago
      RMS certainly agrees with the first part of your comment: he doesn't in any way argue that the software is an adversary of other kinds of software. Rather, he argues that the makers of proprietary software are acting adversarially towards users, by attempting to limit users' control over their own computing platforms. Since the FSF's purpose is to promote user freedom, those proprietary software makers are therefore also in an adversarial relationship with the FSF's mission.
joezydeco 13y ago
"However, in the end it was the GCC developers that rejected Apple's willing GPL contribution to GCC (still in the pre-GPLv3 days when GCC was GPLv2 licensed). The upstream GCC developers didn't want LLVM because of wanting C instead of C++ code, GCC developers didn't like the modular and library design of LLVM, LLVM wasn't formally "done" at that point, and there was some "Not Invented Here" syndrome going on by the FSF developers." http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4MzE http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4MzE
- saurik 13y ago
  If you actually dig into the history of this, you see that the GCC developers were actually quite positive (even about C++) and that merging parts or even all of LLVM (even parts that conflicted: maintainers from gcc stepped up to explicitly say "I worked hard on this piece, but I am mot attached to it: let's throw it away if LLVM's version is better") came up quite often for the following year (there was a lot of interest from the link-time optimization people, as well as gcj for the JIT features), but in the end (much later) this came down to most of the promises from Chris Lattner not panning out. (I was remarkably happy that the comments on Phoronix actually got this right, so if you read over the comments there you see a lot of discussion of this.) > > The lack of FSF copyright assignment for LLVM is a problem. It may even be a bigger problem than what we think. Then again, it may not. I just don't know. What I do know is that this must absolutely be resolved before we even think of adding LLVM to any branch. Chris said he'd be adding LLVM to the apple branch soon. I hope the FSF assignment is worked out by then. I understand that even code in branches should be under FSF copyright assignment. > This is a solvable problem, and has been pointed out to Chris repeatedly, by many people, at various venues, for over a year. > http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2004-10/msg01146.html http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2004-10/msg01146.html > He keeps hand waving, saying that it's possible. > Great. > I say, enough grandstanding: it's not enough to be possible, it needs to be actual. If it is indeed actually possible to release LLVM under the GPL, then he needs to pick a version and GPL it. Then we can get serious. > Make it so. > He seems to be operating under the mistaken idea that the GCC community can go ahead and make plans around LLVM being free as defined by the GNU project, without it actually being so. -- http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2005-11/msg01065.html http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2005-11/msg01065.html
RexRollman 13y ago
Stallman's view on this was quite predicatable, as he is very consistant in his opinions.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  As is Mr Raymond, to whom Mr Stallman was replying. Another HN thread pointed out a subsequent email in which Mr Raymond realised that the GCC compiler did in fact have a sort of plug-in system.
- judk 13y ago
  RMS is far more knowledgeable, accurate, and respectful when discussing people he disagrees with, than almost anyone else is. (People he disagrees with in the open source world, like ESR/OSI, who he considers neutral or incompletely free. He isn't respectful of people like Bill Gates who promote actively non-open software)
stephenr 13y ago
Stallmans rhetoric and ridiculous hate for apple specifically is nothing new and still makes no sense. His argument about not being able to install modified versions of open source apps on ios is either a blatant lie or sheer ignorance. But that doesn't matter - his opinion is quite obvious as soon as he uses the word "win". It's apparently too horrendous for stallman to imagine a world where some people support and use commercial software and some support and use open source software and some support and use "free" software, without constantly getting into a pissing match. Stallman is frankly no better than a religious fundamentalist claiming abortion and condoms are the work of the devil, and not only will they avoid them, they will lobby governments to enact laws banning such items.
- saurik 13y ago
  > His argument about not being able to install modified versions of open source apps on ios is either a blatant lie or sheer ignorance. This is only true if you are willing and able to pay (and are allowed to pay) Apple $99 to get into their developer program, for a limited number of devices, to get access to a now closed-source fork of LLVM (the AArch64 support is still not merged, and no code from Xcode 5 has seen the light of day now over four months later) that would let you swap in replacement code; and then, even after compiling it, you wouldn't be able to freely redistribute it to others without submitting it to Apple's store review process (which might very well reject it for any number of reasons, including "similar to existing apps", which is actually a documented rejection criteria).
  - stephenr 13y ago
    Membership is required to distribute via the App Store, not to build and install to a device via USB. There is also nothing stopping you installing the app onto others devices the same way.
    - saurik 13y ago
      No: the $99 registration is required to get a provisioning profile that will let you install code onto a limited number of devices. (Have you ever done this before?...)
saurik 13y ago
When this came up yesterday[1] I made a comment that a lot of people seemed to find interesting (by votes, not responses: there's nothing in it really to respond to), so I figure I'll make it again today. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7116144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7116144 In case anyone doesn't realize this: the ARM64 LLVM backend used by Apple in Xcode 5 to target, for example, the iPhone 5S, is currently not open source. There is a vague promise that it will be merged, but the time frame described was itself long, many months have already passed, and it doesn't really seem like much progress has been made since (although of course things could be happening internally at Apple). (In fact, none of the code actually backing Xcode 5 or iOS 7, even LGPL code such as WebCore/JavaScriptCore, has yet to be released; but, in the case of the ARM64 backend, there was a specific discussion about it on the mailing list, and in fact some iOS-specific ARM64 patches to LLVM languished seemingly due to the idea that "well, some day the ARM64 stuff will be merged from Apple", so it is already having "chilling effects".)
- BudVVeezer 13y ago
  A quick search for ARMv8 and AArch64 in the LLVM commits list shows that a considerable amount of work has been happening on this front. In fact: http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-20130107/161182.html http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-... I would have a hard time saying there's "chilling effects" happening.
  - saurik 13y ago
    LLVM has their own ARMv8/AArch64 backend that is unrelated to Apple's. This backend, as far as I understand, does not target Apple's modified conventions and file formats for iOS. A patch was provided for this, and as far as I understand it was not merged. The patch was ignored on the mailing list, and even came with the caveat attached "I'm not sure if the llvm maintainers want the patch given the previous message that there's going to be an official patch set from apple to support this, but here is mine." http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2013-September/065936.html http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2013-September/06... For further evidence of this, we can look to Haskell: Haskell currently has been unable to target iOS's ARM64 architecture because of this part of the compiler not being open source. It is precisely these kinds of ripple effects that Stallman is concerned with: he would argue that by supporting LLVM the community set themselves up for a situation where Apple was able to later hoard valuable changes while still getting the benefit of an army of people fixing bugs in their compiler for free. > Also in "Build Settings", change "Architectures" to "Standard Architectures (armv7, armv7s)" (as opposed to "(including 64-bit)") as Apple hasn't yet merged Arm64 support into the LLVM source that we'd need to fully support 64bit iOS devices. The code will still run wonderfully on the 5S/iPad Air/mini Retina in 32bit mode. https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building/CrossCompiling/iOS https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building/CrossCompilin... Honestly, it is as if you just saw "ARM64", did a Google search, took the first hit, and decided "that's enough research for today"... :(. Your citation is from over a year ago, long before all of this happened, and is not relevant. I specifically stated in my comment that the issue was with relation to the "ARM64" backend as it targets "iOS", not the general "AArch64" backend as it could be used to target other platforms or operating systems. This is a critical distinction when talking about Apple.
NAFV_P 13y ago
I have just thought of a hypothetical scenario: Someone writes a revolutionary piece of software, then it is released under .... 0 > a closed source 1 > a bsd style or 2 > gpl v3 .... licence. I think the last choice would have a far more profound effect upon the science and business of computing than the two alternatives. EDIT: Oh, tor is under bsd, how would things be if it were released under gpl v3?
- andreasvc 13y ago
  I think you forgot to provide an actual argument to back up that claim. Personally I don't think the direct effect will differ depending on the license, but it will have a big effect on how viable the software is in the long term. Closed source will be abandoned when the original authors lose interest, and with BSD code it is arguable that companies taking work but not contributing back has a negative effect on the sense of community, but this is of course hotly contested by BSD license proponents. One big example is the Linux kernel which is GPL; but of course its success may or may not have anything to do with its license.
  - NAFV_P 13y ago
    > I think you forgot to provide an actual argument to back up that claim. I purposely refrained from giving one because it is a hypothetical situation. If you want a potential example I had a quick scroll through the GPL FAQ: > "All GNU GPL versions permit such combinations privately; they also permit distribution of such combinations provided the combination is released under the same GNU GPL version. The other license is compatible with the GPL if it permits this too." Imagine BSD under GPL, since in this universe it is apparently used on Apple OS's.
protomyth 13y ago
from the article's first comment: "On the other hand, Stallman's goals (having the best compiler technology be foverer a copylefted one) is perhaps achievable by having the GCC developers abandon GCC, switch to working on a fork of LLVM/Clang relicensed to GPLv3 with continuous merging of Apple's work, and make that fork far superior to Apple's version." I assume this person means the changes would be licensed as GPLv3 because you cannot just go and relicense someone else's code without the copyright holder's permission. Calling it "Apple's version" might be a tad bit offensive to the other companies working on LLVM / clang.
- bitkrieg 13y ago
  Plus this actually would be a step backwards since gcc's code generation is still significantly ahead performance wise.
nzp 13y ago
The biggest problem (possibly the only problem, but still a severe one) with Stallman's views on software copyright licensing is that he seems either unaware of, or unwilling to accept, broader social, economic and political issues of our civilization. Software and processes around it, like any other product of human social production, doesn't and can't exist in a social vacuum. It's nice to be focused on a specific social issue, but when your work scales to a certain level it becomes impossible to consider it in isolation. Reading the comments on that article made me glad to see an LLVM developer who chimed in (silvas) understands this perfectly and he articulated it quite well: We don't do everything in public purely because of internal constraints of the companies that we work for and those won't go away without significant societal changes (i.e., the necessary changes vastly transcend the developers' own attitudes on the issue: we're talking changes at the levels of entire business models). [...] > What about iPhone platform support? I assume you mean that the platform is locked down? Well, that's their platform. They make the rules for who gets to compile for it. Now, you may say "well, they shouldn't restrict who gets to compile for their platform!" and that's fine, but it's a different issue, one which goes to the core of Apple's business model and the society that enables it and the individuals that make up that society. Even if LLVM/Clang were to magically become GPL'd tomorrow, the platform would still be locked down. [...] It's myopic to think that the software is somehow the key factor here: the assault on freedom in this situation is the incentive to keep it proprietary, and that is a much larger issue. There is a similar assault on freedom from the fact that their hardware designs are proprietary as well, and the incentives are similar. [...] In my experience, Stallman's view is extremely myopic because the real impediments to free software are larger societal issues[1]. Within the hacker community these issues don't really exist (Eric Raymond's essays cover this well), and so the default is that code is free software (four freedoms), but the other 99.99% of society is still stuck with archaic principles, and any time that a hacker's paycheck comes from "the rest of society", they are subject to a world where these issues exist. [1] The GPLv3 "anti-Tivo-ization" wording is a perfect example that shows that confining your view just to software is myopic. Why shouldn't we want the entire device and all its chips to be free also? Why shouldn't the company's internal discussions be done in public? The answer to these questions is the same as the answer to "why does non-free software exist?".
- 13y ago
X4 13y ago
If this is true, Stallmann has kept right with all what he said! >> "by having the GCC developers abandon GCC, switch to working on a fork of LLVM/Clang __relicensed__ to GPLv3" >> Yeah, not allowed by copyright law. They aren't the authors, so they could only GPL code they wrote. If even the best developers of the world (allow me to exaggerate a little, it's from my perspective anyways) aren't allowed to work on OSS, then this is really a CUT of Freedom. I would love to see GCC people switch to LLVM GPL. I see it this ways: GPL is an insurance that guarantees that whatever is made with this code, will benefit this code in a way that everyone can take care of that benefit. Even though I'm new to this, I don't understand the hate towards Mr. Stallman, he seems to be a fine man and his own strong opinions on a movement he has started. There is nothing wrong with it, he's not beating someone up, just because he's not of the same opinion, he's keeping the premise of his movement alive. That's a good trait, not a bad one, esp. because he keep talking openly about it. He's not wirting private confidential emails to discuss such things, but makes it public, so that everyone can see. it. Imagine someone publicises only one of your emails attached to your own name, it could be thrown out of context and people could start a shitstorm, just because wrong word was used, or because of your look . Takes guts to say your opinion, non-anonymously, when you already have reputation in stack.
thatthatis 13y ago
If you care about free as in freedom, copy middle is how to get it. Copy left tears from you ownership of your incremental work, it makes your work an ideological prisoner of the commons. Copy left ensures a certain degree of openness, but open does not equal free. Only copy middle is truly free software.
rsynnott 13y ago
I have to wonder if there'd be so much fuss about any permissive-license project where Apple _wasn't_ a major contributor. I mean, you rarely see this level of concern that the existence of the Apache web server or Python or whatever will pollute the FSF's precious bodily fluids. It might be just that GCC is such a flagship project for them, but, really, the level of concern seems unwarranted. You'd think LLVM was the first software ever to use a permissive license or something...
codex 13y ago
Stallman consistently ignores the free market when writing about software freedom. What users want, the free market will provide. If they want customizable software, the market will give it to them. If they only want feature X, the market will give it to them. If they want interop., they will get that too. If they don't care about modifying the source code, well, people won't offer it. The GPL is not what allows users to get what they need from software or technology. It's the market. As long as you have a free market, with able competitors, you don't need the GPL, and the whole discussion of "free software" is a red-herring. As far as mainstream users are concerned, you don't need the source when you have the dollar. Stallman's initial experience with closed software was not in a free market, so I can see how he's grown up with a colored view. The world has changed, however, and he has not. Stallman's original problem was essentially, "I had a broken car once and I couldn't get the part I needed to repair it. That sucked, so all manufacturers should provide everyone with all the information needed make any replacement part, or turn my Beetle into a Porsche." In today's world that problem really doesn't exist anymore. Software is a mass market product, and the software that is produced already conforms to what people want pretty well. Sure, I'll take cheaper parts for my car, and I love getting something for nothing, but on the list of humanity's problems, non-GPL software is very, very low.

81 points by microtherion 13y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7116144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7116144

pjmlp 13y ago

In a way I kind of agree with him. On one way, it is clear that pure GPL software is not a way for whole industry to function. Taken to the extreme, 100% GPL software, from what would software developers live from? Not all use cases can be applied to support, training or selling hardware. On the other had the other open source licenses, promote the freedom of the software developer, but not the end user. Which is usually of no importance when the end user is a plain user. However developers are also end users from the products of others. I grew up in culture, where we had to pay for every piece of software we used, except if we typed it ourselves from code listinings in magazines. So in one extreme we have the everything free model, and in the other we have the old model. Currently we seem to be more or less in the middle. I just wonder to which direction will the balance change.

gjulianm 13y ago
You can still get paid for building free software. For example, take a employee management program that needs to be catered to the specific needs of each company. You still get paid for those adaptations + deployment the same you'd get paid with closed source software.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  That falls under the support part I mentioned.
  - gjulianm 13y ago
    Bad example. But what I tried to say is that, if a company needs you to build software, you will get paid regardless of the final license of the work.
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      What about all persons that use computers in a 100% GPL world? Home users, for example.
drdaeman 13y ago
> 100% GPL software, from what would software developers live from? As usual, from their craft, the software development. GPL-everything scenario doesn't mean there won't be need to develop software anymore. It is quite usual to be paid to hack upon FLOSS code. Neither it seem too weird to be paid to write new FLOSS projects. A customer needs a solution and has money, an engineer has skills and needs money. The only downside (or upside, depending on point of view) is that developers won't be able to make $0.99-priced apps unless they really make it in mere minutes of their time. They'll have to raise funding using some form of threshold pledge system.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  The problem with a pledge system is that my $.99 on it's own won't make or break the project and since I'm getting the software for free anyway it's more rational to keep the money in my pocket. So you would have to impose it as some sort of tax, which has it's own problems.
  - danieldk 13y ago
    On the other hand, you also know that if everyone applies the same reasoning, the project will not be completed, and your loss is probably greater than $.99.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      The problem is that most others will apply the same reasoning regardless of whether I pay my $.99 or not.
  - boomlinde 13y ago
    Your argument is based on the idea that people make rational decisions.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      It tends to be difficult to get people to spend money without something in return.
belorn 13y ago
> Taken to the extreme, 100% GPL software, from what would software developers live from? From people who pay them to develop software that they need? Last time I saw statistics on the subject, developers paid to code for internal use was still more common that developers working on software meant for the public. But lets disregard that, and only look on the proprietary model. You trade software for money, and then you threaten them with lawsuit and jail if the customer share or modify the work. Can we have a software industry without the threat of lawsuit hanging above every customers head?
marcosdumay 13y ago
Another problem is that the GPL is quite easy to circunvent (that's why the cloud is big), but Affero is a horribly restrictive, and quite probably illegal in nearly the entire world (copyright laws are very similar). You know, I'm under the impression that nearly all of the current problems would simply go away if copyrights duration was reduced to a sane amount. But one of those problems is that there is a set of incompetent people with way more power than they deserve, and those people won't help fix it.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
  How do you think would the AGPL be illegal? As for reducing the duration of copyright: I am not sure, binaries without source that you are allowed to disassemble still aren't anywhere near source code, don't you think?
davidgerard 13y ago
Almost no developer works on shrinkwrapped software sold as proprietary. Such developers are a tiny minority.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  People buying desktop software and games think otherwise.
  - davidgerard 13y ago
    Thus demonstrating the difference between anecdote and statistics.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

codeflo 13y ago

I'm still quite convinced by the idea of software freedom, as explained in Stallman's earlier writings: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html Having said that, I find Stallman's war rhetoric increasingly disturbing: > The only code that helps us and not our adversaries is copylefted code. Free software released under a pushover license is available for us to use, but available to our adversaries just as well. This is the language of war propaganda, and shouldn't have any place in rational discussions. > If that enables GCC to "win", the victory would be hollow, because it would not be a victory for what really matters: users' freedom. All while endorsing the Affero GPL, a license that doesn't even allow users full control over their own servers. Maybe if someone is that convinced of a cause, the ends seem to justify every means. I'm not sure what's going on at the FSF, but it seems that they've lost sight of some of their original principles.

bjourne 13y ago
Isn't it you who are being irrational? That closed source software is the adversary of free software has been the fsf's position for ages. I see no war propaganda and "adversary" is not a synonym to "enemy."
- stephenr 13y ago
  Software doesn't have adversaries - people do. Open source and commercial and "free" software are no more adversaries than vanilla and chocolate ice cream are adversaries. As Steve jobs pointed out in (I believe) the late 90s - "Microsoft doesn't have to lose for us to win". Software is binary, the culture and mindset around it shouldn't be.
  - mjn 13y ago
    RMS certainly agrees with the first part of your comment: he doesn't in any way argue that the software is an adversary of other kinds of software. Rather, he argues that the makers of proprietary software are acting adversarially towards users, by attempting to limit users' control over their own computing platforms. Since the FSF's purpose is to promote user freedom, those proprietary software makers are therefore also in an adversarial relationship with the FSF's mission.

joezydeco 13y ago

"However, in the end it was the GCC developers that rejected Apple's willing GPL contribution to GCC (still in the pre-GPLv3 days when GCC was GPLv2 licensed). The upstream GCC developers didn't want LLVM because of wanting C instead of C++ code, GCC developers didn't like the modular and library design of LLVM, LLVM wasn't formally "done" at that point, and there was some "Not Invented Here" syndrome going on by the FSF developers." http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4MzE http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4MzE

saurik 13y ago
If you actually dig into the history of this, you see that the GCC developers were actually quite positive (even about C++) and that merging parts or even all of LLVM (even parts that conflicted: maintainers from gcc stepped up to explicitly say "I worked hard on this piece, but I am mot attached to it: let's throw it away if LLVM's version is better") came up quite often for the following year (there was a lot of interest from the link-time optimization people, as well as gcj for the JIT features), but in the end (much later) this came down to most of the promises from Chris Lattner not panning out. (I was remarkably happy that the comments on Phoronix actually got this right, so if you read over the comments there you see a lot of discussion of this.) > > The lack of FSF copyright assignment for LLVM is a problem. It may even be a bigger problem than what we think. Then again, it may not. I just don't know. What I do know is that this must absolutely be resolved before we even think of adding LLVM to any branch. Chris said he'd be adding LLVM to the apple branch soon. I hope the FSF assignment is worked out by then. I understand that even code in branches should be under FSF copyright assignment. > This is a solvable problem, and has been pointed out to Chris repeatedly, by many people, at various venues, for over a year. > http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2004-10/msg01146.html http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2004-10/msg01146.html > He keeps hand waving, saying that it's possible. > Great. > I say, enough grandstanding: it's not enough to be possible, it needs to be actual. If it is indeed actually possible to release LLVM under the GPL, then he needs to pick a version and GPL it. Then we can get serious. > Make it so. > He seems to be operating under the mistaken idea that the GCC community can go ahead and make plans around LLVM being free as defined by the GNU project, without it actually being so. -- http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2005-11/msg01065.html http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2005-11/msg01065.html

RexRollman 13y ago

Stallman's view on this was quite predicatable, as he is very consistant in his opinions.

keithpeter 13y ago
As is Mr Raymond, to whom Mr Stallman was replying. Another HN thread pointed out a subsequent email in which Mr Raymond realised that the GCC compiler did in fact have a sort of plug-in system.
judk 13y ago
RMS is far more knowledgeable, accurate, and respectful when discussing people he disagrees with, than almost anyone else is. (People he disagrees with in the open source world, like ESR/OSI, who he considers neutral or incompletely free. He isn't respectful of people like Bill Gates who promote actively non-open software)

stephenr 13y ago

Stallmans rhetoric and ridiculous hate for apple specifically is nothing new and still makes no sense. His argument about not being able to install modified versions of open source apps on ios is either a blatant lie or sheer ignorance. But that doesn't matter - his opinion is quite obvious as soon as he uses the word "win". It's apparently too horrendous for stallman to imagine a world where some people support and use commercial software and some support and use open source software and some support and use "free" software, without constantly getting into a pissing match. Stallman is frankly no better than a religious fundamentalist claiming abortion and condoms are the work of the devil, and not only will they avoid them, they will lobby governments to enact laws banning such items.

saurik 13y ago
> His argument about not being able to install modified versions of open source apps on ios is either a blatant lie or sheer ignorance. This is only true if you are willing and able to pay (and are allowed to pay) Apple $99 to get into their developer program, for a limited number of devices, to get access to a now closed-source fork of LLVM (the AArch64 support is still not merged, and no code from Xcode 5 has seen the light of day now over four months later) that would let you swap in replacement code; and then, even after compiling it, you wouldn't be able to freely redistribute it to others without submitting it to Apple's store review process (which might very well reject it for any number of reasons, including "similar to existing apps", which is actually a documented rejection criteria).
- stephenr 13y ago
  Membership is required to distribute via the App Store, not to build and install to a device via USB. There is also nothing stopping you installing the app onto others devices the same way.
  - saurik 13y ago
    No: the $99 registration is required to get a provisioning profile that will let you install code onto a limited number of devices. (Have you ever done this before?...)

saurik 13y ago

When this came up yesterday[1] I made a comment that a lot of people seemed to find interesting (by votes, not responses: there's nothing in it really to respond to), so I figure I'll make it again today. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7116144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7116144 In case anyone doesn't realize this: the ARM64 LLVM backend used by Apple in Xcode 5 to target, for example, the iPhone 5S, is currently not open source. There is a vague promise that it will be merged, but the time frame described was itself long, many months have already passed, and it doesn't really seem like much progress has been made since (although of course things could be happening internally at Apple). (In fact, none of the code actually backing Xcode 5 or iOS 7, even LGPL code such as WebCore/JavaScriptCore, has yet to be released; but, in the case of the ARM64 backend, there was a specific discussion about it on the mailing list, and in fact some iOS-specific ARM64 patches to LLVM languished seemingly due to the idea that "well, some day the ARM64 stuff will be merged from Apple", so it is already having "chilling effects".)

BudVVeezer 13y ago
A quick search for ARMv8 and AArch64 in the LLVM commits list shows that a considerable amount of work has been happening on this front. In fact: http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-20130107/161182.html http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-... I would have a hard time saying there's "chilling effects" happening.
- saurik 13y ago
  LLVM has their own ARMv8/AArch64 backend that is unrelated to Apple's. This backend, as far as I understand, does not target Apple's modified conventions and file formats for iOS. A patch was provided for this, and as far as I understand it was not merged. The patch was ignored on the mailing list, and even came with the caveat attached "I'm not sure if the llvm maintainers want the patch given the previous message that there's going to be an official patch set from apple to support this, but here is mine." http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2013-September/065936.html http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2013-September/06... For further evidence of this, we can look to Haskell: Haskell currently has been unable to target iOS's ARM64 architecture because of this part of the compiler not being open source. It is precisely these kinds of ripple effects that Stallman is concerned with: he would argue that by supporting LLVM the community set themselves up for a situation where Apple was able to later hoard valuable changes while still getting the benefit of an army of people fixing bugs in their compiler for free. > Also in "Build Settings", change "Architectures" to "Standard Architectures (armv7, armv7s)" (as opposed to "(including 64-bit)") as Apple hasn't yet merged Arm64 support into the LLVM source that we'd need to fully support 64bit iOS devices. The code will still run wonderfully on the 5S/iPad Air/mini Retina in 32bit mode. https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building/CrossCompiling/iOS https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building/CrossCompilin... Honestly, it is as if you just saw "ARM64", did a Google search, took the first hit, and decided "that's enough research for today"... :(. Your citation is from over a year ago, long before all of this happened, and is not relevant. I specifically stated in my comment that the issue was with relation to the "ARM64" backend as it targets "iOS", not the general "AArch64" backend as it could be used to target other platforms or operating systems. This is a critical distinction when talking about Apple.

NAFV_P 13y ago

I have just thought of a hypothetical scenario: Someone writes a revolutionary piece of software, then it is released under .... 0 > a closed source 1 > a bsd style or 2 > gpl v3 .... licence. I think the last choice would have a far more profound effect upon the science and business of computing than the two alternatives. EDIT: Oh, tor is under bsd, how would things be if it were released under gpl v3?

andreasvc 13y ago
I think you forgot to provide an actual argument to back up that claim. Personally I don't think the direct effect will differ depending on the license, but it will have a big effect on how viable the software is in the long term. Closed source will be abandoned when the original authors lose interest, and with BSD code it is arguable that companies taking work but not contributing back has a negative effect on the sense of community, but this is of course hotly contested by BSD license proponents. One big example is the Linux kernel which is GPL; but of course its success may or may not have anything to do with its license.
- NAFV_P 13y ago
  > I think you forgot to provide an actual argument to back up that claim. I purposely refrained from giving one because it is a hypothetical situation. If you want a potential example I had a quick scroll through the GPL FAQ: > "All GNU GPL versions permit such combinations privately; they also permit distribution of such combinations provided the combination is released under the same GNU GPL version. The other license is compatible with the GPL if it permits this too." Imagine BSD under GPL, since in this universe it is apparently used on Apple OS's.

protomyth 13y ago

from the article's first comment: "On the other hand, Stallman's goals (having the best compiler technology be foverer a copylefted one) is perhaps achievable by having the GCC developers abandon GCC, switch to working on a fork of LLVM/Clang relicensed to GPLv3 with continuous merging of Apple's work, and make that fork far superior to Apple's version." I assume this person means the changes would be licensed as GPLv3 because you cannot just go and relicense someone else's code without the copyright holder's permission. Calling it "Apple's version" might be a tad bit offensive to the other companies working on LLVM / clang.

bitkrieg 13y ago
Plus this actually would be a step backwards since gcc's code generation is still significantly ahead performance wise.

nzp 13y ago

The biggest problem (possibly the only problem, but still a severe one) with Stallman's views on software copyright licensing is that he seems either unaware of, or unwilling to accept, broader social, economic and political issues of our civilization. Software and processes around it, like any other product of human social production, doesn't and can't exist in a social vacuum. It's nice to be focused on a specific social issue, but when your work scales to a certain level it becomes impossible to consider it in isolation. Reading the comments on that article made me glad to see an LLVM developer who chimed in (silvas) understands this perfectly and he articulated it quite well: We don't do everything in public purely because of internal constraints of the companies that we work for and those won't go away without significant societal changes (i.e., the necessary changes vastly transcend the developers' own attitudes on the issue: we're talking changes at the levels of entire business models). [...] > What about iPhone platform support? I assume you mean that the platform is locked down? Well, that's their platform. They make the rules for who gets to compile for it. Now, you may say "well, they shouldn't restrict who gets to compile for their platform!" and that's fine, but it's a different issue, one which goes to the core of Apple's business model and the society that enables it and the individuals that make up that society. Even if LLVM/Clang were to magically become GPL'd tomorrow, the platform would still be locked down. [...] It's myopic to think that the software is somehow the key factor here: the assault on freedom in this situation is the incentive to keep it proprietary, and that is a much larger issue. There is a similar assault on freedom from the fact that their hardware designs are proprietary as well, and the incentives are similar. [...] In my experience, Stallman's view is extremely myopic because the real impediments to free software are larger societal issues[1]. Within the hacker community these issues don't really exist (Eric Raymond's essays cover this well), and so the default is that code is free software (four freedoms), but the other 99.99% of society is still stuck with archaic principles, and any time that a hacker's paycheck comes from "the rest of society", they are subject to a world where these issues exist. [1] The GPLv3 "anti-Tivo-ization" wording is a perfect example that shows that confining your view just to software is myopic. Why shouldn't we want the entire device and all its chips to be free also? Why shouldn't the company's internal discussions be done in public? The answer to these questions is the same as the answer to "why does non-free software exist?".

13y ago

X4 13y ago

If this is true, Stallmann has kept right with all what he said! >> "by having the GCC developers abandon GCC, switch to working on a fork of LLVM/Clang __relicensed__ to GPLv3" >> Yeah, not allowed by copyright law. They aren't the authors, so they could only GPL code they wrote. If even the best developers of the world (allow me to exaggerate a little, it's from my perspective anyways) aren't allowed to work on OSS, then this is really a CUT of Freedom. I would love to see GCC people switch to LLVM GPL. I see it this ways: GPL is an insurance that guarantees that whatever is made with this code, will benefit this code in a way that everyone can take care of that benefit. Even though I'm new to this, I don't understand the hate towards Mr. Stallman, he seems to be a fine man and his own strong opinions on a movement he has started. There is nothing wrong with it, he's not beating someone up, just because he's not of the same opinion, he's keeping the premise of his movement alive. That's a good trait, not a bad one, esp. because he keep talking openly about it. He's not wirting private confidential emails to discuss such things, but makes it public, so that everyone can see. it. Imagine someone publicises only one of your emails attached to your own name, it could be thrown out of context and people could start a shitstorm, just because wrong word was used, or because of your look . Takes guts to say your opinion, non-anonymously, when you already have reputation in stack.

thatthatis 13y ago

If you care about free as in freedom, copy middle is how to get it. Copy left tears from you ownership of your incremental work, it makes your work an ideological prisoner of the commons. Copy left ensures a certain degree of openness, but open does not equal free. Only copy middle is truly free software.

rsynnott 13y ago

I have to wonder if there'd be so much fuss about any permissive-license project where Apple _wasn't_ a major contributor. I mean, you rarely see this level of concern that the existence of the Apache web server or Python or whatever will pollute the FSF's precious bodily fluids. It might be just that GCC is such a flagship project for them, but, really, the level of concern seems unwarranted. You'd think LLVM was the first software ever to use a permissive license or something...

codex 13y ago

Stallman consistently ignores the free market when writing about software freedom. What users want, the free market will provide. If they want customizable software, the market will give it to them. If they only want feature X, the market will give it to them. If they want interop., they will get that too. If they don't care about modifying the source code, well, people won't offer it. The GPL is not what allows users to get what they need from software or technology. It's the market. As long as you have a free market, with able competitors, you don't need the GPL, and the whole discussion of "free software" is a red-herring. As far as mainstream users are concerned, you don't need the source when you have the dollar. Stallman's initial experience with closed software was not in a free market, so I can see how he's grown up with a colored view. The world has changed, however, and he has not. Stallman's original problem was essentially, "I had a broken car once and I couldn't get the part I needed to repair it. That sucked, so all manufacturers should provide everyone with all the information needed make any replacement part, or turn my Beetle into a Porsche." In today's world that problem really doesn't exist anymore. Software is a mass market product, and the software that is produced already conforms to what people want pretty well. Sure, I'll take cheaper parts for my car, and I love getting something for nothing, but on the list of humanity's problems, non-GPL software is very, very low.