4 ms·

> But it's not an argument against clang Well, one could argue that clang and its license are inseparable and if the license enables the reality that more and

> But it's not an argument against clang Well, one could argue that clang and its license are inseparable and if the license enables the reality that more and more higher quality stuff remains proprietary and that the source-available clang version remains a step child or second class citizen then your "high quality free software compiler" point becomes at least partially invalid. If on the other hand GCC's license means more companies contributed in the open and only a single first class product remained equally available to everyone then GCC ended up being a better product than clang.

ajross 12y ago
But if you made that argument you'd have to make it with facts. :) The plain truth is that clang is free software, and (c.f. linked article) is very much a "first class citizen" in existing free software environments. Apple's variant is not free software, and that sucks. So it seems reasonable to argue that it would have been "better" had LLVM been copyleft. But that only extends as far as the facts on the ground, so arguing that we're seeing the "end of free compilers" seems silly to me.
- blinkingled 12y ago
  > But if you made that argument you'd have to make it with facts. We don't have enough facts yet to make the determination - clang is fairly young still - but for now we do have precedences and motives. Precedences you can look up and motives - well Apple dumped GCC because they wanted to be able to do things without legally being required to publish source. So it isn't entirely without reason to wonder if clang will face a second class future due to its license.
  - mwfunk 12y ago
    There are many, many reasons people might want to avoid the GPL that have nothing to do with wanting to get out of a legal obligation to publish source. The FLOSS world is filled with innumerable high-profile, very successful projects that avoided the GPL for reasons that had nothing to do with wanting to keep some things proprietary. Sometimes people just want to share software without making a political statement that they may not agree with, or imposing a legal and/or social burden on others (or assuming one for themselves). The adversarial, black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us accusations that some GPL advocates are known for are actually a big reason why many people don't like the GPL, and associate it with carrying a lot of baggage in addition to the actual legalese that defines the license.
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    "well Apple dumped GCC because they wanted to be able to do things without legally being required to publish source." Apple dumped GCC because they wanted control over their own destiny. They could not get GCC to go in the direction they wanted, and it was just a much larger amount of engineering effort to accomplish their goal. Apple gave not a crap about publishing source to their GCC changes. In fact, they wished they could get more changes into GCC. The licensing stuff is tangential. Yes, it's their stated reason, but it's a cover story. Do you really think lawyers run Apple?
    - deng 12y ago
      > The licensing stuff is tangential. Yes, it's their stated reason, but it's a cover story. So it's a pure coincidence they stopped updating gcc in OSX right when it moved to GPLv3? And the reason they stopped updating bash, Emacs, etc., and dumped Samba, is also because those projects didn't move in the direction they wanted?
      - DannyBee 12y ago
        I can only speak to GCC because I actually know what happened there, and actually talked to the people making the decision. You talk about the rest as if it actually mattered to their developers. They stopped updating X11 and java too. Have you considered that they stopped to look and just stopped updating the stuff that didn't matter to them anymore?
        deng 12y ago
        For years developers begged Apple to update gcc, and they did not do it. Mind you, that was at a time when Clang was not nearly where it is today. They dumped Samba and replaced it with a new development of their own that was vastly inferior. They still ship an ancient bash 3.2.51, although developers wanted a new version for years. They even backported the shellshock patch for that. I draw my conclusions from those facts, not from some hearsay. I can't believe you actually think that the GPLv3 is a "cover story". A cover for what? That they think they can do it better? Why would they need a cover story for that? Why would they even care?
serge2k 12y ago
No, it doesn't. Clang is a high quality free software compiler regardless of if Apple has a proprietary internal addon that makes it better. GCC isn't a better product now, what makes you think it will be in the future other than the license?

ajross 12y ago

But if you made that argument you'd have to make it with facts. :) The plain truth is that clang is free software, and (c.f. linked article) is very much a "first class citizen" in existing free software environments. Apple's variant is not free software, and that sucks. So it seems reasonable to argue that it would have been "better" had LLVM been copyleft. But that only extends as far as the facts on the ground, so arguing that we're seeing the "end of free compilers" seems silly to me.

blinkingled 12y ago
> But if you made that argument you'd have to make it with facts. We don't have enough facts yet to make the determination - clang is fairly young still - but for now we do have precedences and motives. Precedences you can look up and motives - well Apple dumped GCC because they wanted to be able to do things without legally being required to publish source. So it isn't entirely without reason to wonder if clang will face a second class future due to its license.
- mwfunk 12y ago
  There are many, many reasons people might want to avoid the GPL that have nothing to do with wanting to get out of a legal obligation to publish source. The FLOSS world is filled with innumerable high-profile, very successful projects that avoided the GPL for reasons that had nothing to do with wanting to keep some things proprietary. Sometimes people just want to share software without making a political statement that they may not agree with, or imposing a legal and/or social burden on others (or assuming one for themselves). The adversarial, black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us accusations that some GPL advocates are known for are actually a big reason why many people don't like the GPL, and associate it with carrying a lot of baggage in addition to the actual legalese that defines the license.
- DannyBee 12y ago
  "well Apple dumped GCC because they wanted to be able to do things without legally being required to publish source." Apple dumped GCC because they wanted control over their own destiny. They could not get GCC to go in the direction they wanted, and it was just a much larger amount of engineering effort to accomplish their goal. Apple gave not a crap about publishing source to their GCC changes. In fact, they wished they could get more changes into GCC. The licensing stuff is tangential. Yes, it's their stated reason, but it's a cover story. Do you really think lawyers run Apple?
  - deng 12y ago
    > The licensing stuff is tangential. Yes, it's their stated reason, but it's a cover story. So it's a pure coincidence they stopped updating gcc in OSX right when it moved to GPLv3? And the reason they stopped updating bash, Emacs, etc., and dumped Samba, is also because those projects didn't move in the direction they wanted?
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      I can only speak to GCC because I actually know what happened there, and actually talked to the people making the decision. You talk about the rest as if it actually mattered to their developers. They stopped updating X11 and java too. Have you considered that they stopped to look and just stopped updating the stuff that didn't matter to them anymore?
      - deng 12y ago
        For years developers begged Apple to update gcc, and they did not do it. Mind you, that was at a time when Clang was not nearly where it is today. They dumped Samba and replaced it with a new development of their own that was vastly inferior. They still ship an ancient bash 3.2.51, although developers wanted a new version for years. They even backported the shellshock patch for that. I draw my conclusions from those facts, not from some hearsay. I can't believe you actually think that the GPLv3 is a "cover story". A cover for what? That they think they can do it better? Why would they need a cover story for that? Why would they even care?

serge2k 12y ago

No, it doesn't. Clang is a high quality free software compiler regardless of if Apple has a proprietary internal addon that makes it better. GCC isn't a better product now, what makes you think it will be in the future other than the license?