Re: clang/emacs/ecb/semantic

[Daniel Colascione]

On 12/3/12 9:56 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: Chong Yidong <address@hidden>
>> Cc: Daniel Colascione <address@hidden>,  address@hidden,  address@hidden,  
>> address@hidden
>> Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2012 01:21:09 +0800
>>
>> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> More to the point, you seem to say that the line was drawn in the
>>> wrong place in this matter.  But you never say why it was wrong, in
>>> practical terms
>>
>> The practical terms are in the subject of this thread, i.e. the fact
>> that there is no GPL'ed compiler which can provide the parse data needed
>> by a modern IDE.
> 
> And there wasn't a GPL'ed text editor that supported bidirectional
> editing 2 years ago.  So what?  All it means that no one stepped
> forward and did that in a way that was acceptable.  It certainly
> doesn't mean the FSF should fall for the first opportunity out there,
> just because there's no other solution.

There was no GPLed text editor supporting bidirectional editing
because the work hadn't been done. (Thanks again for doing that work.)
The gcc situation is different: multiple parties stepped forward to do
the work required to integrate gcc with other tools, and the gcc
developers refused to accept it. I don't think there is any technical
that would satisfy both the technical requirements of external tools
and the political requirements of the gcc developers.

Licensing is one thing, but a modular gcc, covered by the GPL, would
itself be just as free as today's gcc. (As would an Emacs with an FFI,
for that matter.) Technical restrictions are something else.

Reducing functionality can *never* serve the cause of software
freedom. Free programs should be as technically strong as possible,
even if that means they can talk to non-free programs. It's up to
developers to produce free software so good that users choose to use
free programs together, and crippling free software so that it can't
interoperate with *anything*, be it free or non-free, is a "see no
evil" approach that's not only a strategic blunder, but an affront to
users.

signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature