Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp

[David Engster]

Richard Stallman writes:
>   > I understand that. What I'm saying is: For almost five years now (since
>   > gcc 4.5 introduced plugins), access to GCC's AST is wide open for
>   > everyone. However, in all that time (and to my knowledge) no one has
>   > used that to feed non-free backends, and that is in my opinion enough
>   > evidence that your worries are unfounded. They might have been valid in
>   > the past, but not since LLVM and clang have joined the scene.
>
> Since LLVM and Clang are not copylefted, they invite nonfree extensions.
> They are a gaping hole in the defensive wall around our city.

It seems we are unable to communicate. My paragraph above was not about
Clang and LLVM, but that the door to GCC's AST is already open. That
ship has sailed.

>   > > To figure out just what Emacs needs, that's the task I am talking
>   > > about.
>
>   > If you want to support things like completions, refactoring, symbol
>   > searches, etc., we need full access to the AST from inside Emacs.
>
> With all due respect, it is so important to avoid the full AST
> that I'm not going to give up on it just because someone claims
> that is necessary.

And with the same respect, I choose to not invest more time on this. It
was you who told me to abandon libclang and choose GCC instead. And now
that I'm working on that, I only get confronted with vague restrictions
like "you may only export what you need for completions".

Of course, the nice thing about free software is that I don't need your
approval. However, it is clear to me now that I cannot depend on GCC's
plugin infrastructure, as there's the very real risk that you shut that
door as soon as someone uses it to export the AST.

-David