Re: clang/emacs/ecb/semantic

[Óscar Fuentes]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

>     Something that should have been merged into gcc a long time ago.
>
>     It generates the parse tree as xml.   http://www.gccxml.org/
>
> Do you mean, the entire parse tree in full detail?
> Would it be conceivable to feed this into a nonfree back-end?
> Would this mean that nonfree backends could take advantage
> of our free front-ends?

No. The output does not contain the actual body of functions, for
instance. It is useful for knowing "what's the type of this global
variable?", "where is this type defined?", "how many arguments has
this function? what's their types?", "what's the data members of this
struct?", "what's the methods of this class?" etc

It is enough for automatically generating function and type wrappers for
using C/C++ code from other languages through their FFIs, but absolutely
insufficient for compiling such C/C++ code.

> If so, it is very dangerous -- it would open the door to a terrible
> setback for our defense of users' freedom.  Namely, the use of free
> software as part of compilers that are partly nonfree.  I don't
> remember, but I would guess that is why we have refused to merge it
> into GCC.
>
>     Llvm and clang provide natively a way to get the parse tree (and other
>     phases information), and therefore they can be used easily in IDE.
>
> LLVM and Clang open the door to the same terrible setback.  Since they
> are not copylefted, their front-ends can be used with nonfree
> back-ends and vice versa.

Yes.

> They are being developed by people who don't care about users'
> freedom, funded by the worst enemy of users' freedom (Apple).

Apple is, possibly, the main founder, but there are several other
parties involved (Google and FreeBSD, for instance) and all those are
very interested on keeping the status quo. If Apple tried to hinder
the other actors on any way, the project would fork in no time. And, the
project lider is all for keeping LLVM & Clang as they are, no matter he
is an Apple employee.