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Re: [DotGNU]gcc?
From: |
Fergus Henderson |
Subject: |
Re: [DotGNU]gcc? |
Date: |
Mon, 5 Nov 2001 02:09:40 +1100 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.3.22i |
Hi,
I've recently subscribed to this list, and I've just being going through the
mailing list archives and noticed a couple of articles that I thought worth
replying to.
On 05-Aug-2001, Keith Poole wrote:
> why couldn't the .GNU virtual machine use
> the gcc back-end to convert the IL?
and on 05-Aug-2001, David Sugar <address@hidden> replied
> There are philisphical reasons not to do this and why this won't be done.
>
> Consider this, what if one had a proprietary compiler tool chain for some
> special proprietary "X" language that happend to generate IL. This would mean
> that one could then use gcc to compile entirely source secret applications.
> This would be a perversion of gcc.
This is *already* the case for proprietry "X" language compilers that
happen to generate C or JVM code -- both of which are currently more
popular than IL as target languages. For example, the original C++
compiler "Cfront", which was and which remains proprietry, worked by
compiling to C.
Adding an IL front-end to GCC would not be making any fundamental change
in this respect. It's just a matter of degree. And I think that we
should worry about making things convenient for free software developers,
rather than about making things difficult for proprietry software developers.
--
Fergus Henderson <address@hidden> | "... it seems to me that 15 years of
The University of Melbourne | email is plenty for one lifetime."
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | -- Prof. Donald E. Knuth
- Re: [DotGNU]gcc?,
Fergus Henderson <=