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This is totally amazing, I knew that RMS used to hold this opinion (hiding the GCC AST so nasty people can't misuse it), but I believed (wrongly it turns out),

This is totally amazing, I knew that RMS used to hold this opinion (hiding the GCC AST so nasty people can't misuse it), but I believed (wrongly it turns out), he'd abandoned it by now. I can't see how he can defend crippling software, and blocking usecases which clearly a large set of users want (all kinds of editor intelligent colouring, competition), out of fear of a closed-source boogyman which doesn't exist any more, thanks to clang (if it ever did).

TylerE 12y ago
Because Stallman has never given a fig for the users, just the programmer-gods.
- ralmidani 12y ago
  The point of copyleft is to protect users from being oppressed by programmers.
  - _ak 12y ago
    Copyleft is a collectivist ideology, it only ever cares about users as an anonymous mass, but not about individuals with individual needs and constraints.
    - dalke 12y ago
      Copyright is also a collectivist ideology. "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is even more anonymous than "users".
    - prodigal_erik 12y ago
      No user ever needs to be unable to arrange for maintenance of the software they rely on. That only benefits some developers by holding their customers captive.
- smithzvk 12y ago
  The other reply says as much, but it bears repeating as what you said is so extremely incorrect. The GPL is and always has been a license that limits the rights of programmers in order to ensure the rights of users. This is one of those, frankly, pretty rare cases where the users actually feel a limitation of the GPL (mostly because people that use Emacs has a significant overlap with programmers where the line between developer and end user is very blurry).
  - TylerE 12y ago
    How many non-programmer users do you personally know that are capable of compiling a C program from source?
    - hga 12y ago
      They could always hire other programmers to do that. And there's real value in having that option, or getting software from a community that works like that, most famously the Linux distro scene.
    - djur 12y ago
      Not many people are capable of fixing their car personally, but they do benefit from not being required to go to Toyota whenever it breaks. Nonfree software is like an appliance which you're legally forbidden from modifying without permission from the original maker.
    - smithzvk 12y ago
      Missed your reply. Actually it is pretty irrelevant how many non-programmers are capable of compiling or meaningfully editing the C program. The point is that a programmer cannot (reasonably) edit to restrict you freedom. However, after rethinking what I wrote, I should clarify that while the underlying principles are the same regarding what RMS is trying to do here (limit programmers to protect users), the GPL has nothing really to with this particular fiasco.
  - belorn 12y ago
    > the rights of programmers So adding proprietary license on top of software which one has not authored is a right that belongs to programmers?
yuhong 12y ago
To be honest, I think it was useful back in the 1990s.
__david__ 12y ago
> …out of fear of a closed-source boogyman which doesn't exist any more… (if it ever did). It most certainly did. Read here[1] about the history of Objective-C. NeXT tried to keep as much of it as possible proprietary. Sadly, because LLVM is so good but doesn't have copyleft protection, we live in a world where something new and interesting like Swift may never be non-proprietary. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C#Popularization_through_NeXT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C#Popularization_thr...
- MBCook 12y ago
  > we live in a world where something new and interesting like Swift may never be non-proprietary. Should Apple not have a right to make their own proprietary language? Let's not forget that Apple is a big part of why LLVM is as well known as it is.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Proprietary language? You mean like a single platform language? What a complete waste that would be. Languages can't be proprietary, anybody can re-implement some language if there is a spec. Whether you can name it the same or not is another issue but non-proprietary languages usually don't survive for very long so it would be in Apples own interest that swift ends up in as many hands as possible. Oracle still doesn't understand this completely about Java, maybe Apple will never understand it about Swift, meanwhile all those non-proprietary languages will flourish.
    - meepmorp 12y ago
      > ... proprietary languages usually don't survive for very long so it would be in Apples own interest that swift ends up in as many hands as possible. This is wrong thinking and it misunderstands Apple's goals and motives for Swift. First and foremost, it's a replacement for Objective-C, which is itself effectively proprietary - there are open source compilers and some legacy openstep implementations, but the driving force behind the language has been exclusively Apple for at least a decade now. In that context, Swift has the same expected level of success as Objective-C, owing to the community that exists around its predecessor. And, for Apple, the important metrics for success with Swift are entirely focused around the effectiveness of the language in support their platform. Given the relative popularity of the platform, they can reasonably expect that people will use the language to gain access to Apple's userbase, because it's a valuable commodity. Second, Apple doesn't care if Swift has a long life, at least, not per se. They want it to be used and to be successful because it's where they're probably moving their platform in the medium to long term. But they're not invested in the longevity of the language so much as they're invested in their platform. If, in another decade, they decide that Swift has outlived its usefulness, they'll replace it and let it die. Any other scenario for the language failing entails Apple faltering as a company, in which case, they don't really care about the Swift's success. (I snipped a "non-" off proprietary, because it didn't seem like what you were arguing from the rest of the post.)
gillianseed 12y ago
>out of fear of a closed-source boogyman which doesn't exist any more, thanks to clang (if it ever did). Eh, what ? Apple is already shipping their proprietary fork of Clang which supports their proprietary language Swift, this is exactly what Free Software which Stallman advocates is working against. The whole idea of Free Software is that the end user will have the full rights to examine, modify, copy, run said software, proprietary plugins in GCC flies right in the face of that, so obviously Stallman is opposed to them.
- anon1385 12y ago
  >Eh, what ? Apple is already shipping their proprietary fork of Clang which supports their proprietary language Swift, this is exactly what Free Software which Stallman advocates is working against. Thats exactly the point. Anybody wanting to make a proprietary language implementation, or proprietary IDE is already using llvm anyway, and would remain doing so. New projects of that nature would almost certainly still use llvm. The only people really being affected by this are people who want to use GNU tooling, but are left with deliberately crippled tools. The ability to develop plugins for GCC has existed for years now, but nobody has used it to do the evil things RMS insisted would happen (remember, he blocked the creation of the plugin interface for many years). The main reason is that Clang/LLVM is just much easier and nicer to work with (e.g. you don't have to write and maintain your own plugin to export an AST instead of having it be part of the core project). Hence all the brightest young minds in compiler research and language development are using LLVM in their work instead of GCC and an entire generation that could have been using and contributing to GNU software are working to improve 'the enemy'. Its hard to think of a more valuable group of people to drive away. Or a more thorough way to drive them away than to try to put intellectual shackles on them. Stallman's suggestion of only exporting a gimped AST that only allows a few specific transformations gives people involved in languages and tooling the same reaction as RMS feels when told he can't see the code for the software on his printer. >The whole idea of Free Software is that the end user will have the full rights to examine, modify, copy, run said software, proprietary plugins in GCC flies right in the face of that, so obviously Stallman is opposed to them. Nobody is proposing creating proprietary plugins for GCC. People are proposing a GPL licensed plugin to export the AST for use by emacs. No proprietary code involved at all. RMS has said he would block the use of such a plugin in emacs, thus deliberately crippling emacs, which is why emacs is probably going to get forked (again).

TylerE 12y ago

Because Stallman has never given a fig for the users, just the programmer-gods.

ralmidani 12y ago
The point of copyleft is to protect users from being oppressed by programmers.
- _ak 12y ago
  Copyleft is a collectivist ideology, it only ever cares about users as an anonymous mass, but not about individuals with individual needs and constraints.
  - dalke 12y ago
    Copyright is also a collectivist ideology. "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is even more anonymous than "users".
  - prodigal_erik 12y ago
    No user ever needs to be unable to arrange for maintenance of the software they rely on. That only benefits some developers by holding their customers captive.
smithzvk 12y ago
The other reply says as much, but it bears repeating as what you said is so extremely incorrect. The GPL is and always has been a license that limits the rights of programmers in order to ensure the rights of users. This is one of those, frankly, pretty rare cases where the users actually feel a limitation of the GPL (mostly because people that use Emacs has a significant overlap with programmers where the line between developer and end user is very blurry).
- TylerE 12y ago
  How many non-programmer users do you personally know that are capable of compiling a C program from source?
  - hga 12y ago
    They could always hire other programmers to do that. And there's real value in having that option, or getting software from a community that works like that, most famously the Linux distro scene.
  - djur 12y ago
    Not many people are capable of fixing their car personally, but they do benefit from not being required to go to Toyota whenever it breaks. Nonfree software is like an appliance which you're legally forbidden from modifying without permission from the original maker.
  - smithzvk 12y ago
    Missed your reply. Actually it is pretty irrelevant how many non-programmers are capable of compiling or meaningfully editing the C program. The point is that a programmer cannot (reasonably) edit to restrict you freedom. However, after rethinking what I wrote, I should clarify that while the underlying principles are the same regarding what RMS is trying to do here (limit programmers to protect users), the GPL has nothing really to with this particular fiasco.
- belorn 12y ago
  > the rights of programmers So adding proprietary license on top of software which one has not authored is a right that belongs to programmers?

yuhong 12y ago

To be honest, I think it was useful back in the 1990s.

__david__ 12y ago

> …out of fear of a closed-source boogyman which doesn't exist any more… (if it ever did). It most certainly did. Read here[1] about the history of Objective-C. NeXT tried to keep as much of it as possible proprietary. Sadly, because LLVM is so good but doesn't have copyleft protection, we live in a world where something new and interesting like Swift may never be non-proprietary. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C#Popularization_through_NeXT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C#Popularization_thr...

MBCook 12y ago
> we live in a world where something new and interesting like Swift may never be non-proprietary. Should Apple not have a right to make their own proprietary language? Let's not forget that Apple is a big part of why LLVM is as well known as it is.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Proprietary language? You mean like a single platform language? What a complete waste that would be. Languages can't be proprietary, anybody can re-implement some language if there is a spec. Whether you can name it the same or not is another issue but non-proprietary languages usually don't survive for very long so it would be in Apples own interest that swift ends up in as many hands as possible. Oracle still doesn't understand this completely about Java, maybe Apple will never understand it about Swift, meanwhile all those non-proprietary languages will flourish.
  - meepmorp 12y ago
    > ... proprietary languages usually don't survive for very long so it would be in Apples own interest that swift ends up in as many hands as possible. This is wrong thinking and it misunderstands Apple's goals and motives for Swift. First and foremost, it's a replacement for Objective-C, which is itself effectively proprietary - there are open source compilers and some legacy openstep implementations, but the driving force behind the language has been exclusively Apple for at least a decade now. In that context, Swift has the same expected level of success as Objective-C, owing to the community that exists around its predecessor. And, for Apple, the important metrics for success with Swift are entirely focused around the effectiveness of the language in support their platform. Given the relative popularity of the platform, they can reasonably expect that people will use the language to gain access to Apple's userbase, because it's a valuable commodity. Second, Apple doesn't care if Swift has a long life, at least, not per se. They want it to be used and to be successful because it's where they're probably moving their platform in the medium to long term. But they're not invested in the longevity of the language so much as they're invested in their platform. If, in another decade, they decide that Swift has outlived its usefulness, they'll replace it and let it die. Any other scenario for the language failing entails Apple faltering as a company, in which case, they don't really care about the Swift's success. (I snipped a "non-" off proprietary, because it didn't seem like what you were arguing from the rest of the post.)

gillianseed 12y ago

>out of fear of a closed-source boogyman which doesn't exist any more, thanks to clang (if it ever did). Eh, what ? Apple is already shipping their proprietary fork of Clang which supports their proprietary language Swift, this is exactly what Free Software which Stallman advocates is working against. The whole idea of Free Software is that the end user will have the full rights to examine, modify, copy, run said software, proprietary plugins in GCC flies right in the face of that, so obviously Stallman is opposed to them.

anon1385 12y ago
>Eh, what ? Apple is already shipping their proprietary fork of Clang which supports their proprietary language Swift, this is exactly what Free Software which Stallman advocates is working against. Thats exactly the point. Anybody wanting to make a proprietary language implementation, or proprietary IDE is already using llvm anyway, and would remain doing so. New projects of that nature would almost certainly still use llvm. The only people really being affected by this are people who want to use GNU tooling, but are left with deliberately crippled tools. The ability to develop plugins for GCC has existed for years now, but nobody has used it to do the evil things RMS insisted would happen (remember, he blocked the creation of the plugin interface for many years). The main reason is that Clang/LLVM is just much easier and nicer to work with (e.g. you don't have to write and maintain your own plugin to export an AST instead of having it be part of the core project). Hence all the brightest young minds in compiler research and language development are using LLVM in their work instead of GCC and an entire generation that could have been using and contributing to GNU software are working to improve 'the enemy'. Its hard to think of a more valuable group of people to drive away. Or a more thorough way to drive them away than to try to put intellectual shackles on them. Stallman's suggestion of only exporting a gimped AST that only allows a few specific transformations gives people involved in languages and tooling the same reaction as RMS feels when told he can't see the code for the software on his printer. >The whole idea of Free Software is that the end user will have the full rights to examine, modify, copy, run said software, proprietary plugins in GCC flies right in the face of that, so obviously Stallman is opposed to them. Nobody is proposing creating proprietary plugins for GCC. People are proposing a GPL licensed plugin to export the AST for use by emacs. No proprietary code involved at all. RMS has said he would block the use of such a plugin in emacs, thus deliberately crippling emacs, which is why emacs is probably going to get forked (again).