C++11 & The Long-Term Viability Of GCC Is Questioned

[brosis]

And just to be clear. I love GPLv2, but I will never release any code under GPLv3. It is too much of a burden on me, a developer. I don't want to be involved in idealistic intellectual wars, and GPLv3 forces this upon me without any additional benefits to me.

Co-signed. I will never release any of my work under GPLv3 for much the same reasons as you.

First, the "wars" are not "idealistic" - they are legal and they are to follow as laws.

Secondly, the only "burden" is the difference between GPL2 and 3 - a protection against tiviosation and patent issues.

So you two basically said "We write closed source code and we don't give a damn about freedoms". Then use BSD license.

I think, the best way out of situation is for RMS and FSF to nullify the GPL2 and to provide any "protection" only if the code is migrated to GPL3, and license header explicitly states "GPL3 and later"

FSF and RMS stayed true to their mission, while you guys are a disgrace.

[brosis]

This is not part of kernel.

It is distributed in kernel source code package, so it is.
Also, there are various files stating "licensed under GPL." (without version) or "GPL 2 or later".

Anyways: /Documentation/development-process/1.Intro

1.5: LICENSING

Code is contributed to the Linux kernel under a number of licenses, but all
code must be compatible with version 2 of the GNU General Public License
(GPLv2), which is the license covering the kernel distribution as a whole.
In practice, that means that all code contributions are covered either by
GPLv2 (with, optionally, language allowing distribution under later
versions of the GPL) or the three-clause BSD license. Any contributions
which are not covered by a compatible license will not be accepted into the
kernel.

Copyright assignments are not required (or requested) for code contributed
to the kernel. All code merged into the mainline kernel retains its
original ownership; as a result, the kernel now has thousands of owners.

One implication of this ownership structure is that any attempt to change
the licensing of the kernel is doomed to almost certain failure. There are
few practical scenarios where the agreement of all copyright holders could
be obtained (or their code removed from the kernel). So, in particular,
there is no prospect of a migration to version 3 of the GPL in the
foreseeable future.

So, its GPL2 or later plus BSD as option, and no migration from GPL2 to 3, because Linus considers it a difficult and worthless task. Exactly as I wrote.

May I point out that quite some embedded devices use BSD (I worked on quite some), of most of them you'll just never realize. Also, since OSX is a "BSD" by heart, I wouldn't really dare to call it a failure. It has a larger desktop market share than linux (servers offc is another thing). And if you're talking about licenses, I think GPLv3 was a major mistake, and a huge turnoff for a lot of developers. There is a reason Linus refuses to adopt GPLv3 for the kernel, and I completely share his point of view.

Let me show you how stupid this part of your comment is. It doesn't matter if some dev hidden in his basement takes some BSD code and includes it in his project. BSD gets nothing from it and it's not the reason to be proud. It's the reason to put your head down and go home, because you've just been fooled. It's like someone saying his proud, because Gates is breathing his air. It's such stupid. Furthermore, it's Linux, GPL that has much higher marketshare than BSD. You can only dream about BSD to run on such great number of devices like Linux does: TVs, tuners and God knows what else. What's more funny it's Linux kernel that runs on these devices not some random BSD bits patched together like in yours flagship example. iPhone, OS X are not BSD by heart, they just use BSD userspace in some part and not BSD kernel. When comes to GPLv3 it's very good license, far more popular than BSD. Linus simply doesn't want to relicense kernel, because it would take a huge amount of resources and time. There's no need to relicense it.

And if you're talking compilers, clang is in a lot of areas far superior to GCC, certainly from the point of view of a developer. Clang is just a joy to work with. A lot faster compiles, certainly when using template code, and actual meaningful errors which most of the time point to exactly the right problem. Not 4 pages of meaningless spaghetti errors for 1 forgotten ";" in old template code you haven't changed in months, which GCC compiled just fine just because you didn't use that specific specialization anywhere until then. I've been there, happy hunting if you're in that situation. I can only recommend setting the CC environment variable to "clang" and CXX to "clang++" in a case like that, it'll save you some time. It errors catches any template code, used or not, unlike GCC.
In fact, clang right now is my default compiler in my development environment. And while clang's 'scan-build' static analyzer isn't as far as I hoped, it does some things well and is improved every release. Something like this is doesn't even exist in the gcc tool-chain. If more and more developers discover what day-to-day advantages clang has over GCC, it will get used more and more, at the expense of GCC.

When comes to this part I partially agree. I'm not against it and when it will become faster than GCC I see no reason to not use it.

So GPL winning? As long as developers stand behind it, and I'm afraid it's going to lose ground here.

I think you meant GCC, because GPL simply owns any other Open Source license.

[LightBit]

For example, a lazy search of GPL3: /tools/testing/selftests/mqueue/mq_perf_tests.c

This is not part of kernel.

[koffie]

A: Linus made a kernel
B: stallman and the fsf made pretty much everything else
C: people insist on calling it 'linux' when the system as a whole should be referred to as gnu/linux
D: they did all this for YOU so YOU could use YOUR system as YOU see fit - stallman and torvalds so thank them BOTH!

if bitching between developers is causing you distress then perhaps you should open a bug report

While the GNU toolkit certainly bootstrapped Linux, without Linux, GNU would not be where it was right now. Hurd failed to gain any traction, and that project was started a few years before Linux was released. The GNU/FSF's achievements mostly are GCC/GDB, glibc, coreutils and bash, oh and Gnome if you use it. Yes these are important things, but without the linux kernel, they would never have gotten the attention they got in the past 20 years. People suddenly had an OS on which they could actually use the GNU tools, instead of shoehorning it onto other OS'es, so they had to be improved.

I don't know about you, but my first linux distro was a slackware 3.0 on cdrom, which took ages to install on my 66mhz 486 with a whopping 12mb RAM and a 1x mitsumi cdrom. I can guarantee you, the difference between the mentioned building blocks at that time and now is night and day. Back in those days, politics didn't matter that much, everything was a hobby project anyway and 'open source' was simply that, 'open source' and the license was relatively simple to understand. The internet also only just started to be available to a broader public, allowing for an 'easier' way to accept patches from a broader public. It was one big happy family, until linux caught the attention of more mainstream commercial entities, which started using it in various way. Some contributed back, some didn't.

I've been around for quite a while now, and I don't believe for a second the "GNU toolkit" would have had the success or contributers it has had over the years if Linux wouldn't have popped up. It was the platforme that enabled the FSF to shine. So while the GNU/FSF movement does deserve credit for creating GPLv2 and GCC, they seem think they did it all on their own. In reality, they didn't. Oh and just read GPLv3, and try to understand what the hell you can, can't, should and shouldn't do. Good luck!

Lately, politics and angst have taken over the FSF and actually writing code has become a second-class citizen, or do you think it's coincidence they don't attract new developers for their projects? Just look at the sorry state of the "other" FSF projects.

...
And it is "explicitly stated otherwise" many times in headers of different files - the licenses range from BSD to GPL3.
The paragraph above only specifies the "default" license, if none mentioned.

For example, a lazy search of GPL3: /tools/testing/selftests/mqueue/mq_perf_tests.c

The kernel itself does not contain any GPLv3 code, only the "scripts", directory, containing just that, scripts to aid with development, some generating code, and the directory "tools/testing" - which does exactly that, standalone tools for testing kernel features. These are standalone tools, not integrated into the kernel. The kernel itself? GPLv2. The header clearly states "but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.". This does not include the tools provided with it, which come with their own licenses.

Also, some other licenses can be used in GPLv2 code, if they allow re-licensing, since all code in a GPLv2 program has to fall under the same license. GPLv3 however dictates the same, and is incompatible with GPLv2. RMS said it himself:

When we say that GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible, it means there is no legal way to combine code under GPLv2 with code under GPLv3 in a single program.

Source: http://gplv3.fsf.org/rms-why.html

He makes it sound as if it's no big deal, but in reality it really is. That is what makes GPLv3 horrible to work with. EVERYTHING in your program has to be GPLv3 or you can't use the code, so no, there is no possible legal way that GPLv3 code would end up in the kernel unless the entire kernel would be licenced under GPLv3. And that's a simple fact.


Also, I'm wondering, how much experience do you have with writing GPL licensed code?

[alex_]

A: Linus made a kernel
B: stallman and the fsf made pretty much everything else
C: people insist on calling it 'linux' when the system as a whole should be referred to as gnu/linux
D: they did all this for YOU so YOU could use YOUR system as YOU see fit - stallman and torvalds so thank them BOTH!

if bitching between developers is causing you distress then perhaps you should open a bug report

i wanted to point out that linus does not like gplv3, i agree with you about everything else.

[gamerk2]

And just to be clear. I love GPLv2, but I will never release any code under GPLv3. It is too much of a burden on me, a developer. I don't want to be involved in idealistic intellectual wars, and GPLv3 forces this upon me without any additional benefits to me.

Co-signed. I will never release any of my work under GPLv3 for much the same reasons as you.

[brosis]

Linus not critical on RMS/FSF? That's new. He always had strong opinions, I suggest take a look at for example read the first paragraph of this on his personal blog or this, or any of the rants against the FSF attempts to name it "GNU/Linux". I suggest you read the linux mailing list from time to time, or follow him on google+ (although that has been more about diving lately).

No, he is not. The naming was resolved as "Linux" for kernel and "GNU/Linux", "Linux" or "$name" when it comes to distribution.
It were also not "attempts", because without GNU userland Linus would NEVER be able to write Linux, and GPL license is also something to reckon; as such personally if find it fair to call the Linux kernel+GNU userland system as "GNU/Linux", and, for example Linux kernel + BSD userland system as "BSD/Linux". If you disagree, keep it as personal opinion too please, because "naming" anything is highly personal thing. And frankly, the "dispute" is garbage in itself.

Also, "linux", as in "the kernel" - which is still the only thing what "linux" is, is GPLv2 ONLY. No GPLv3, no LGPL. Straight copy/paste from the "COPYING" file from the linux source code:

   NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
 services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
 of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
 Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
 Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
 kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.

 Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel
 is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not
 v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated.

			Linus Torvalds

----------------------------------------

		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
		       Version 2, June 1991
...

That's pretty damn clear to me.

And just to be clear. I love GPLv2, but I will never release any code under GPLv3. It is too much of a burden on me, a developer. I don't want to be involved in idealistic intellectual wars, and GPLv3 forces this upon me without any additional benefits to me.

Wrong, this is the relevant piece:

lso note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel
is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not
v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated.

And it is "explicitly stated otherwise" many times in headers of different files - the licenses range from BSD to GPL3.
The paragraph above only specifies the "default" license, if none mentioned.

For example, a lazy search of GPL3: /tools/testing/selftests/mqueue/mq_perf_tests.c

mq_perf_tests is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, version 3.

[D0pamine]

really?

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-sourc...the-gplv3/1200

A: Linus made a kernel
B: stallman and the fsf made pretty much everything else
C: people insist on calling it 'linux' when the system as a whole should be referred to as gnu/linux
D: they did all this for YOU so YOU could use YOUR system as YOU see fit - stallman and torvalds so thank them BOTH!

if bitching between developers is causing you distress then perhaps you should open a bug report

[alex_]

Nah, I think it's you who's not really following it.

Linus has had the occasional disagreement with RMS (Linux is much more practical-minded), but he's pretty much in line with the basic ideas behind the FSF.

He's being turned into some kind of anti-FSF apostle by RMS haters, but nothing could be further from the truth.

really?

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-sourc...the-gplv3/1200