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Re: [gnu-prog-discuss] Could automake-generated Makefiles required GNU m


From: Warren Young
Subject: Re: [gnu-prog-discuss] Could automake-generated Makefiles required GNU make?
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:33:40 -0700
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:8.0) Gecko/20111105 Thunderbird/8.0

On 11/22/2011 8:06 PM, Harlan Stenn wrote:
Warren wrote:
On 11/22/2011 6:02 PM, Harlan Stenn wrote:
The BSDs have their good reasons to want to avoid GPL'd code, especially
GPL3.

Besides, why should BSD purity get to hold back the Autotools?

So GNU/Linux purity is fine but BSD purity is not?

Where did I advocate GNU/Linux purity?

Making GNU make a prerequisite does not require that you convert your systems to Linux, nor to relicense everything else under a GNU license.

How does installing GNU make on an otherwise pure BSD system compromise its integrity? It doesn't occupy an especially privileged position. It isn't a library. It doesn't itself generate code. It isn't used to boot and run anything on a Unixy system, only to modify things, and the new things generated aren't tainted by it.

For that matter, where are these pure BSD systems anyway? The BSDs all still ship with gcc, don't they? I know FreeBSD is trying to move to clang, but even that accomplished, I doubt that's the only other GPL program on your average BSD system.

If the distrowatch.com stats are to be believed, *BSD's market share
is under 1% that of Linux

There are %s and there are numbers.  And we all know what they say about
statistics.

Yes, yes, Disraeli and Twain, very good. I like Voltaire better: "A witty saying proves nothing." (Very meta.)

I don't mind that you don't like my stats, but if you want to persuade me to think past them, you'll need to find or collect numbers that paint a significantly different picture. Present them, and we can argue the relative merits of their collection methodologies. Impugning mine just because they are "statistics" (woooo...) and therefore obviously lies will only persuade the innumerate.

People like to say that statistics lie, but that's only when you're doing it wrong. I told you where I got my stats, and DistroWatch tells you how they collect them. I didn't come out and say exactly how I crunched them to get my percentages, but only because I think anyone who follows those vague footprints will arrive at the same destination.

I'm refraining, mightily and successfully, from escalating.  At least so
far.

Well, I know I come across as a strong advocate here, but more an advocate for clear thinking than anything else. I stepped into this thread because I see a lot of wooly arguments against the proposal. I'm not offering to do any of this rewrite work, and I won't lose any sleep if no one else does it, either. I just hate to see the idea shot down with weak arguments.

I think if we're honest, the most powerful explanation of why this probably won't happen is that it's just a lot of work. It's not really about GNU vs BSD make, it isn't about the 0.001% against the 99.999%, and it isn't about licenses. I wouldn't have even bothered butting in if that were the stated reason for not doing it, but we're getting these weak reasons instead.



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