10 ms·

GCC, LLVM, Copyleft, Companies, and Non-Profits (2014)

94 points by jordigh 12y ago

RandomCode 12y ago
Mine is 20,000 lines including assembler unassembler and HolyC compiler. It doesn't use an AST, it uses a stack machine intermediate code. Mine is JIT and AOT. It doesn't support elf, just my own BIN format. It doesn't translate to ASM on back end, straight to x86_64 machine code. Mine can compile 100,000 lines a second. Mine is divine intellect.
sanxiyn 12y ago
It seems to me that many developers are against GPL projects because "I want to use this software at work, but I can't because it's GPL". This always seemed ironic to me because I think it is the workplace that should be blamed, not GPL projects.
- rinon 12y ago
  While I sometimes wish it were not the case, most companies do not exist to improve the world... The purpose of most companies is to make profits, not to advance free software. Making software freer can often cost companies profits, hence, this is sub-optimal. As such, one can hardly blame the workplace for the restriction, since it may indeed be in the company's (and, to some extent, their employees') best interest. Perhaps no one should be blamed for the inability to use GPLed projects: it's simply a conflict in goals.
  - sanxiyn 12y ago
    Paying employees paychecks costs companies profits, but employees love paychecks so companies make deals. Many employees in the software industry, and almost all of LLVM developers, love software freedom, so companies can make deals here too. I think the primary problem is that Apple (IMO, irrationally) refuses to make deals with GPL projects.
    - sounds 12y ago
      The article seems to offer a hint: the earliest publicly discussed major GPL violation was by NeXT computing when Steve Jobs attempted and failed (thanks to RMS' GPL enforcement work) to make the Objective C front-end to GCC proprietary.
      - maxlybbert 12y ago
        There's a little more information about that exchange at http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-... (Stallman brought it up when enforcing the GPL on another free software project: "They had wanted to distribute the Objective C parser as a separate proprietary package to link with the GCC back end, but since I didn't agree this was allowed, they made it free."). It sounds like Stallman wasn't entirely sure the GPL would have prevented Jobs from doing what he wanted, but was convinced by a lawyer that the FSF would have a strong case ("It seemed to me at the time that it was [legal] ... but since the result was very undesirable for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer. What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges would consider such schemes to be 'subterfuges' and would be very harsh toward them. He said a judge would ask whether it is 'really' one program, rather than how it is labeled.").
    - mitchty 12y ago
      I think the primary problem was the FSF doubling down on copyleft with gplv3. I think at that point companies realized they'd need to take a more active role in how things are licensed. And despite LLVM's and clang's history with Apple, it is most decidedly not an Apple project any longer. The LLVM foundation handles that. Looking at commits Google is a likely contender for the biggest overall contributor at this point. I think this is a good example of mutually assured collaboration amongst companies. Sure some stuff gets split off and made proprietary, like the nvidia shader compiler, but overall more goes into it than out. I agree with Linus on gpl v2 and gpl v3, v3 is off into the crazy territory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU If anything I'd say this is an example of how taking too extreme of stances even if well intentioned, and I'll even grant them as "right on their own merits" can backfire in the end. RMS can consider llvm/clang an attack on gpl if he wants, but in the end I only see it as developers wanting to have improved tools and are willing to collaborate to do it. the fact that clang-format exists is a good testament to how gcc isn't doing itself any favors with its political stance in regards to being useful in other categories. But all thats just like my opinion man.
swhipple 12y ago
This article does a good job of explaining the choice of features to implement in GPL software as a political strategy rather than a religion. Especially good timing for this to be brought back up with the recent controversial request by RMS for some LLVM interoperability to be blocked from Emacs. [1] I enjoy free software, but it is painful to think that I might not be able to use Emacs with software that I consider to be equally free (LLVM) due to political strategies. I know RMS has been through enough of the embrace-extend-extinguish era to be suspicious, but given the quality of free toolchains today and the surrounding communities, I have doubts of this history repeating itself in LLVM. [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00360.html http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg003...
- jumpwah 12y ago
  http://youtu.be/-ItFjEG3LaA http://youtu.be/-ItFjEG3LaA The speaker talks about copyleft and how it's dying, and mentions that he's certain the gcc will one day become irrelevant and die to llvm, due to llvm's commercial support and traction.
  - glandium 12y ago
    The speaker is the same person who wrote the article.
- hsivonen 12y ago
  I got downvoted here on HN for worrying that anti-LLVM politics could hinder the adoption of Rust in GNU projects. Looks like my worry of anti-LLVM politics affecting what gets into GNU projects isn't entirely unfounded.
  - sanxiyn 12y ago
    Yes, I do worry about this, and I started working on rustc backend using GCC.
- spiralpolitik 12y ago
  And that is the tragedy of the whole thing. If GCC were the only game in town then RMS' strategy would work. But it's not and all that will end up happening is developers abandoning the GPL for more liberal licenses that they allow them the freedom to do what they need to do get things done. The end result being the savannah turning into a reservation.
pjmlp 12y ago
Swift will show the LLVM supporters the benefits of its license model.
- vetinari 12y ago
  And that would be exactly what benefit? Proprietary front-end, running on limited number (1) of host systems, producing code for limited number (1) of targets? Yes, that will show them. /s
  - JupiterMoon 12y ago
    I think you missed the sarcasm in the parent post.
    - vetinari 12y ago
      You are right.
anon1385 12y ago
All this discussion about the GPL being the only way to protect users seems to be ignoring the fact that the GPL is largely irrelevant in the web era. All of us are using proprietary software that contains GPL code every single day. We can't see the code because the GPL has no effect on networked applications. That seems to be a much more important battle to fight, rather than trying to stop people using GCC for code completion and refactoring in emacs.
- viraptor 12y ago
  Isn't that exactly what AGPL is trying to stop?
  - justincormack 12y ago
    None of those web companies will use agpl software.
    - dengnan 12y ago
      Well. Lots of them use mongodb though.
      - anon1385 12y ago
        mongodb has a licence exception to allow people to use it without releasing the code for the rest of their app: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8966182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8966182
  - lmm 12y ago
    Yes, but no-one's using it.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Massive implementations of Odoo/OpenERP in some of the largest corporations and public entities of some countries beg to disagree :)
legulere 12y ago
This article has quite some flaws. It totally ignores that it was the GPLv3 that let Apple move to LLVM - with Apple not being the only company that was kind of okay with GPLv2 but totally avoids GPLv3. It often looses touch with reality. It absolutely ignores that Apple was a contributor of GCC and some of the LLVM developers were GCC developers before. It goes on and on how LLVM is in a terrible state that will get even worse because of a missing copyleft, when in reality LLVM is thriving because of the many companies that are contributing.
- sangnoir 12y ago
  If Apple is "kind of okay with GPLv2", why doesn't it allow GPLv2 apps in the App Store? In my opinion, Apple was never okay with copyleft (whichever version). There is nothing wrong with a company objecting to copyleft licensing.
  - anon1385 12y ago
    Because the App Store prevents people redistributing apps they have bought and that is incompatible with the GPL. They actually did allow them until the FSF sued them[1]. Apple limit redistribution because they want to make it harder to pirate apps. That isn't the choice I'd make for my apps but I can see why Apple feels they need to try and prevent piracy. Some people have suggested allowing free apps to be redistributed and thus allowing free GPL apps, but the result of that would just be somebody putting up GNU Go for $0.99 and then getting sued by the FSF again. They probably don't think it's worth the hassle of special casing free GPL apps, when users who want them can easily just get them outside of the store. [1] http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-gpl-enforcement http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-...
    - detaro 12y ago
      > when users who want them can easily just get them outside of the store How? Don't you need to get a developer license and all that jazz?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
baybal 12y ago
Does anybody remember Laforce Stevens anti-GPL spam circa 2007? Were they contracted by Apple at that time?

94 points by jordigh 12y ago

Mine is 20,000 lines including assembler unassembler and HolyC compiler. It doesn't use an AST, it uses a stack machine intermediate code. Mine is JIT and AOT. It doesn't support elf, just my own BIN format. It doesn't translate to ASM on back end, straight to x86_64 machine code. Mine can compile 100,000 lines a second. Mine is divine intellect.

sanxiyn 12y ago

It seems to me that many developers are against GPL projects because "I want to use this software at work, but I can't because it's GPL". This always seemed ironic to me because I think it is the workplace that should be blamed, not GPL projects.

rinon 12y ago
While I sometimes wish it were not the case, most companies do not exist to improve the world... The purpose of most companies is to make profits, not to advance free software. Making software freer can often cost companies profits, hence, this is sub-optimal. As such, one can hardly blame the workplace for the restriction, since it may indeed be in the company's (and, to some extent, their employees') best interest. Perhaps no one should be blamed for the inability to use GPLed projects: it's simply a conflict in goals.
- sanxiyn 12y ago
  Paying employees paychecks costs companies profits, but employees love paychecks so companies make deals. Many employees in the software industry, and almost all of LLVM developers, love software freedom, so companies can make deals here too. I think the primary problem is that Apple (IMO, irrationally) refuses to make deals with GPL projects.
  - sounds 12y ago
    The article seems to offer a hint: the earliest publicly discussed major GPL violation was by NeXT computing when Steve Jobs attempted and failed (thanks to RMS' GPL enforcement work) to make the Objective C front-end to GCC proprietary.
    - maxlybbert 12y ago
      There's a little more information about that exchange at http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-... (Stallman brought it up when enforcing the GPL on another free software project: "They had wanted to distribute the Objective C parser as a separate proprietary package to link with the GCC back end, but since I didn't agree this was allowed, they made it free."). It sounds like Stallman wasn't entirely sure the GPL would have prevented Jobs from doing what he wanted, but was convinced by a lawyer that the FSF would have a strong case ("It seemed to me at the time that it was [legal] ... but since the result was very undesirable for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer. What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges would consider such schemes to be 'subterfuges' and would be very harsh toward them. He said a judge would ask whether it is 'really' one program, rather than how it is labeled.").
  - mitchty 12y ago
    I think the primary problem was the FSF doubling down on copyleft with gplv3. I think at that point companies realized they'd need to take a more active role in how things are licensed. And despite LLVM's and clang's history with Apple, it is most decidedly not an Apple project any longer. The LLVM foundation handles that. Looking at commits Google is a likely contender for the biggest overall contributor at this point. I think this is a good example of mutually assured collaboration amongst companies. Sure some stuff gets split off and made proprietary, like the nvidia shader compiler, but overall more goes into it than out. I agree with Linus on gpl v2 and gpl v3, v3 is off into the crazy territory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU If anything I'd say this is an example of how taking too extreme of stances even if well intentioned, and I'll even grant them as "right on their own merits" can backfire in the end. RMS can consider llvm/clang an attack on gpl if he wants, but in the end I only see it as developers wanting to have improved tools and are willing to collaborate to do it. the fact that clang-format exists is a good testament to how gcc isn't doing itself any favors with its political stance in regards to being useful in other categories. But all thats just like my opinion man.

swhipple 12y ago

This article does a good job of explaining the choice of features to implement in GPL software as a political strategy rather than a religion. Especially good timing for this to be brought back up with the recent controversial request by RMS for some LLVM interoperability to be blocked from Emacs. [1] I enjoy free software, but it is painful to think that I might not be able to use Emacs with software that I consider to be equally free (LLVM) due to political strategies. I know RMS has been through enough of the embrace-extend-extinguish era to be suspicious, but given the quality of free toolchains today and the surrounding communities, I have doubts of this history repeating itself in LLVM. [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00360.html http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg003...

jumpwah 12y ago
http://youtu.be/-ItFjEG3LaA http://youtu.be/-ItFjEG3LaA The speaker talks about copyleft and how it's dying, and mentions that he's certain the gcc will one day become irrelevant and die to llvm, due to llvm's commercial support and traction.
- glandium 12y ago
  The speaker is the same person who wrote the article.
hsivonen 12y ago
I got downvoted here on HN for worrying that anti-LLVM politics could hinder the adoption of Rust in GNU projects. Looks like my worry of anti-LLVM politics affecting what gets into GNU projects isn't entirely unfounded.
- sanxiyn 12y ago
  Yes, I do worry about this, and I started working on rustc backend using GCC.
spiralpolitik 12y ago
And that is the tragedy of the whole thing. If GCC were the only game in town then RMS' strategy would work. But it's not and all that will end up happening is developers abandoning the GPL for more liberal licenses that they allow them the freedom to do what they need to do get things done. The end result being the savannah turning into a reservation.

pjmlp 12y ago

Swift will show the LLVM supporters the benefits of its license model.

vetinari 12y ago
And that would be exactly what benefit? Proprietary front-end, running on limited number (1) of host systems, producing code for limited number (1) of targets? Yes, that will show them. /s
- JupiterMoon 12y ago
  I think you missed the sarcasm in the parent post.
  - vetinari 12y ago
    You are right.

anon1385 12y ago

All this discussion about the GPL being the only way to protect users seems to be ignoring the fact that the GPL is largely irrelevant in the web era. All of us are using proprietary software that contains GPL code every single day. We can't see the code because the GPL has no effect on networked applications. That seems to be a much more important battle to fight, rather than trying to stop people using GCC for code completion and refactoring in emacs.

viraptor 12y ago
Isn't that exactly what AGPL is trying to stop?
- justincormack 12y ago
  None of those web companies will use agpl software.
  - dengnan 12y ago
    Well. Lots of them use mongodb though.
    - anon1385 12y ago
      mongodb has a licence exception to allow people to use it without releasing the code for the rest of their app: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8966182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8966182
- lmm 12y ago
  Yes, but no-one's using it.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Massive implementations of Odoo/OpenERP in some of the largest corporations and public entities of some countries beg to disagree :)

legulere 12y ago

This article has quite some flaws. It totally ignores that it was the GPLv3 that let Apple move to LLVM - with Apple not being the only company that was kind of okay with GPLv2 but totally avoids GPLv3. It often looses touch with reality. It absolutely ignores that Apple was a contributor of GCC and some of the LLVM developers were GCC developers before. It goes on and on how LLVM is in a terrible state that will get even worse because of a missing copyleft, when in reality LLVM is thriving because of the many companies that are contributing.

sangnoir 12y ago
If Apple is "kind of okay with GPLv2", why doesn't it allow GPLv2 apps in the App Store? In my opinion, Apple was never okay with copyleft (whichever version). There is nothing wrong with a company objecting to copyleft licensing.
- anon1385 12y ago
  Because the App Store prevents people redistributing apps they have bought and that is incompatible with the GPL. They actually did allow them until the FSF sued them[1]. Apple limit redistribution because they want to make it harder to pirate apps. That isn't the choice I'd make for my apps but I can see why Apple feels they need to try and prevent piracy. Some people have suggested allowing free apps to be redistributed and thus allowing free GPL apps, but the result of that would just be somebody putting up GNU Go for $0.99 and then getting sued by the FSF again. They probably don't think it's worth the hassle of special casing free GPL apps, when users who want them can easily just get them outside of the store. [1] http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-gpl-enforcement http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-...
  - detaro 12y ago
    > when users who want them can easily just get them outside of the store How? Don't you need to get a developer license and all that jazz?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

baybal 12y ago

Does anybody remember Laforce Stevens anti-GPL spam circa 2007? Were they contracted by Apple at that time?