Re: Contributing LLVM.org patches to gud.el

[Richard Stallman]

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  > > However, from what you said above, LLVM doesn't NECESSARILY all link
  > > together.  That is the point.

  > Depending on the definition of "linking".

The usual definition of linking is that modules are loaded into one
address space and refer to each others functions and variables.
That's the definition I'm using.

  > > I prioritize users' freedom above technical merit, and that's why I
  > > wrote GCC.  If not for that, I wouldn't have had to write a C compiler
  > > at all -- I could have used one of the proprietary ones.

  > Those compilers were not free.  Prioritizing users' freedom above
  > technical merit did not force us to rewrite the non-copylefted X Window
  > System,

That is true.  But we do have a copylefted compiler, and it has aided
users' freedom tremendously by leading many companies to release free
compilers for their hardware.  LLVM has cut off our ability to do that,
and that will be a big loss to users' freedom.

Whatever advantages LLVM may have, they don't compensate for this big
harm.

  > the initial Clang code was offered by its author working at
  > Apple for inclusion into GCC in 2005.  Of course, this would have
  > included the respective copyright assignments.  This contribution was
  > rejected.  Not even on philosophical grounds, but rather mostly because
  > of technical reasons that have by now become irrelevant.

If that is what happened, what it shows is that GCC developers can
make mistakes in anticipating future developments and how to cope with
them.  They aren't perfect, and neither am I.

Someone else described this to me in a different way -- he said that the
copyright assignment discussion petered out.

I don't know which way it really happened, but it doesn't really
matter -- it doesn't affect the issues at stake.  If it were just our
success at stake, you could say we deserve not to succeed because we
made a mistake.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
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