FreeBSD 8.0 vs. Ubuntu 9.10 Benchmarks

[energyman]

GCC does not change any licences at all.

And it DOES NOT CHANGE the licence of the source code.

The resulting binary is a different theme - because of linking to libgcc but the FSF already stood up and clarified everything around it.

This is just another case of the BSD crowd masturbating about some licence nonesense so they can feel victimized.

[nanonyme]

The funny part is that BSD License clearly states that original authors retain copyrights to the product. Copyright owners are the only people who can decide whether the license is allowed to be changed to another license that isn't compatible with the prior one. In fact the only conclusion that can be drawn from that is that if GCC would manage to change the license of the original code to GPLv3 without the explicit permission from the authors, this would be a copyright violation. What really in a theoretical case (with GCC license changes actually intepreted the other way too) would happen is that you would end up in a situation where you can have a source distributed under a more limitative license (GPLv3) but you could also choose to obtain it from the authors under BSDL. The icky bit of it all is it seems to me they just left an enormous hole in the licenses since if all target code is GPLv3 and you can only link GPLv3 against GPLv3, they'd as far as I see it nullify the no-linking rule. (or face a law-suit)
Seriously though: It's not going to change anything. In most countries copyright is definitive while software licenses are iffy so FSF guys would have to be idiots to try to sue.

[risner]

More important would be BSDs to become GPL3

The two types of licenses are incompatible at a fundamental level.

BSD License (MIT, and 10+ other licenses) permit the code to be used without source code to changes provided.

GPL (v1, v2, and to a greater extent v3) require source to be provided and FSF is very busy suing Cisco and anyone else using Linux without making source available.

The two sides of the fence (BSD devs and Linux devs) are never going to agree the other philosophy is "better" so you will never find them switching licenses.

It is more than these two camps, look at KDE and Gnome. There really isn't any point in two groups writing the "same" thing, but they have different agendas. Same for Xorg and XFree86, different agendas.

[Apopas]

The one important feature it has today is that it uses a more permissive license.

More important would be BSDs to become GPL3

[risner]

I would expect them to ask the FSF to clarify the stuff. oh wait, the FSF did - including a FAQ with all kinds of examples.

That FAQ was around when all this happened, it isn't a legally binding document. Without a signed document from the FSF that provides protection, that FAQ won't help when sued.

Your persistence here makes me think you believe they are just using this as "excuse" to not use GCC? I'm having trouble fingering your beliefs.

Do you believe they just want to make a political issue of it? (They might be I don't know)

I believe they want to use it, but are afraid based on the wording (which I still believe is dangerous in my opinion despite the FAQ.)

In the end, it will be harmful to FreeBSD. Their current plan (since using GCC is out) is to help with bugs in the LLVM compiler code base to hopefully switch to it sometime in the next few years. But LLVM was started in 2004 has a total of 5 years in development but gcc was started in 1987 with a total of 22 years development. It will be a while before LLVM has GCC's current features, much less more features. The one important feature it has today is that it uses a more permissive license.

[energyman]

I would expect them to ask the FSF to clarify the stuff. oh wait, the FSF did - including a FAQ with all kinds of examples.

[risner]

emm. No. The output always had the gpl'ed gcc-lib linked into it. They made an exception to allow that for all kind of software despite the fact it might violate the gpl. And they made the same exception now for the gplv3'ed gcc. So nothing changed at all.

Sigh. While I see how you come to that interpretation, I just don't see why you care so much to take what amounts to the stance of "they are fools for thinking this way."

I'm no attorney, but if FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD (three separate but similar groups) all have been legally advised they can not use GCC 4.2.2 to compile their product without lingering doubt of violating the license. Do you really expect them to use it?

[energyman]

I am not a licensing expert so I can only comment on the situation as I remember it when the decision to stop at GCC 4.2.1 was made by the FreeBSD developers. At the time it was said to be a legal reason and not a "political" or emotional reason.

What I do know is that the BSD license is significantly more permissive than the GPL license, particularly the GPLv3 license. There are a number of licenses incompatible with GPLv3 including Apache 1-2.0, Mozilla, Original BSD, XFree86 1.1 and GPLv3 (if not for the usual "code can be upgraded to future GPL licenses" line in most GPLv2 versions.)

Did a little googling, I think this is the problem:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gcc-exception-faq.html

Where they now (with GCC 4.2.2) consider OUTPUT of the GCC compiler GPLv3 licensed material. That would prevent someone from using GCC 4.2.2 and up to compile anything and release the compiled application without source code for the whole system (because Target Code is now forced to be GPLv3 code) being released.

emm. No. The output always had the gpl'ed gcc-lib linked into it. They made an exception to allow that for all kind of software despite the fact it might violate the gpl. And they made the same exception now for the gplv3'ed gcc. So nothing changed at all.

[nanonyme]

Basically, you shot the messenger. I didn't make the decision, I just posted about it. This whole debacle isn't a FreeBSD specific problem. Every single BSD with the exception of DragonFlyBSD have opted to not upgrade past 4.2.1 GCC.

I have heard the message numerous times, always without good backing. The claim that a compiler could cause a change in the software's license is utterly ridiculous. I personally believe the lawyer was simply being paranoid with his claims. But that's nothing new, lawyers usually are.

[LinuxID10T]

I am pretty sure FreeBSD loses

Srry. I cant actually see my image as my eyes are dilated too much. Damn optometry....

I am pretty sure FreeBSD loses this test. Debugging options, different compiler, or not.