Re: clang/emacs/ecb/semantic

[Daniel Colascione]

On 12/1/12 8:15 PM, Richard Stallman wrote:
> If "tool builders could use it to write compatible parsers to use in
> their tools", is that good or is it bad?  You seem to think it is
> always good.  I think it is good if the tools are free, and bad if the
> tools are nonfree.  Nonfree tools (like any nonfree programs) are an
> injustice.

That's absurd. Software freedom should never be at odds with
interoperability. Freedom and trust are inseparable. You can't use
free software to make paternalistic decisions about non-free software
for the user. You have to trust users to act in their own interest and
choose not to use non-free tools that might interoperate with free
software. Denying users this choice is the precise opposite of
freedom: it's ideology-driven authoritarianism.

A free program provides no actual freedom when there are no users
around to enjoy that freedom. Deliberately crippling interoperability
between free software and the rest of the world actually undermines
the viability of free software as an alternative to commercial
software. When Clang eclipses gcc, it will just suggest, perhaps
incorrectly, that GPL is merely a drag on software development and
encourage developers to leave copyleft behind.

gcc-xml should have been merged a long time ago. The only thing the
gcc project will have accomplished by preventing gcc's use as a decent
back-end for a proprietary system is to ensure that users use
development environments in which neither the front nor the back end
is truly free.

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