Re: Contributing LLVM.org patches to gud.el

[David Kastrup]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > LLVM is not meant to kill GCC
>
> More precisely, Apple intends LLVM and Clang to make GCC cease to be a
> signal success and a reason for all sorts of companies to work on a
> compiler that always gives users freedom.  That would be a victory for
> Apple and a defeat for freedom.

As far as I can see, Apple does not _control_ LLVM/Clang development
like they do with Darwin.  Instead there is a multi-party coalition of
interested and independent parties working on it.  The continued success
of LLVM/Clang, particularly in the academics, depends on this
constellation to continue to a significant degree.

So I don't see it as a defeat but rather as a win for software freedom
as a governing principle.  The bad side is the possibility of
proprietary off-spins, and that's not just a theoretical consideration
but an actively used one (for GPU programming).  So it is a loss for
copyleft.  I don't really see it as a "victory" for Apple as they had to
cede control to a community in order to have the project take flight.
This is different to their way of treating people interested in working
on Darwin, their free software kernel, like second-class rabble getting
thrown scraps.  But while I would not call it a "victory", it definitely
is a form of success.

As long as the price they feel they have to pay for their success is
actually enabling a free software project based on a prospering
community (even if not copylefted), we are doing something right.
I don't see the point in taking the pressure off them by committing a
complex form of suicide, stopping GNU programs from interacting well in
the hope to stop people from using them in connection with LLVM.

> I don't know what LLDB is, or what it might do.  I am going to find
> out.

Well, judging from this thread being about basic gud.el support for
LLDB, chances are that it is a debugger.

-- 
David Kastrup