Re: Contributing LLVM.org patches to gud.el

[Yann Hodique]

>>>>> "Helmut" == Helmut Eller <address@hidden> writes:

>> Tell them to dissolve their own community and
>> commit ritual suicide?

> Changing the license would hardly be suicide.  Apple could still be the
> main contributor and they managed to survive even when they had to use
> GCC.  It would piss off NVIDIA but it might attract some other
> individuals who don't like the idea that NVIDIA profits from their
> contributions.  Either way, you don't make those decisions.

I find that claim (that a license change would annoy the NVIDIAs of the
world) very odd.

After all, the core of the entire issue, and this whole discussion, is
that the FSF did object to *technical possibilities* in order to counter
those same people, effectively deeming the GPL alone insufficient to
reach that goal. So now we cannot possibly be suggesting that slapping
a GPL sticker on LLVM could solve the "issue", can we?

I mean, one (at least...) of the following has to be true:
- the modularity of LLVM (GPL or not) allows access to the internals of
  a compilation phase in a textual form, making it easy for people to
  pipe a non-free component where they fancy
- the GPL is enough to push non-free components away (or is the best we
  can do anyway), and we've been wasting time and opportunities
  protecting something that doesn't exist

Bottom line, we cannot say that a GPL compiler (GCC) made modular would
have been a problem, but that a modular compiler (LLVM) made GPL would
be a solution. In the end, they'd be both modular and GPL, right?

Thanks,

Yann.

-- 
Speak the truth.  That is always much easier,
and is often the most powerful argument.

  -- Bene Gesserit Axiom