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

[D0pamine]

I love fanboi-ism and hateboi-ism

can i reliably use clang/llvm on a standard gentoo setup right now? no?

if and when this is possible i've no doubt i'll use it or at least suck it and see - until then i'll use gcc which does a fantastic job

so all this RMS and FSF hateboi-ism is just pointless forum war fodder for people with little to do after emptying their prostate

[koffie]

Arguing which license is more used is like arguing which jeans color is better.
Black jeans are not better than blue jeans, people prefer black jeans because they find it more fitting for their use case (lifestyle), not because they are better.

And building an OS using BSD license is good for student projects, they will close it down anyway - who cares?



Linus was never critical of FSF or RMS, but he is critical when it comes to relicensing the whole kernel, because he himself made a mistake to license it under GPL2 only.

How, he has to track down every single contributor and ask them if its ok to change license, which is really hard job and in his viewpoint its not not worthy for just adding "anti-tivioization".

But GPL3 is much more, hence Linux is licensed GPL2, LGPL2+, GPL3 + many more open licenses now, while Linus himself signs just as "(c) Linus Torvalds".

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).

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.

[kraftman]

GPL use is decreasing, Apache, MIT, and BSD are increasing. http://osrc.blackducksoftware.com/data/licenses/

Don't you see GPL owns OS licenses and bsd remains meaningless?

[pingufunkybeat]

I think you don't really follow Linus Torvalds, he has always been critical of the FSF and RMS.

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.

[brosis]

The problem with GPLv3 is that it is anti "tivoization"/DRM, and tries to limit what will be done with the code, while GPLv2 is "pro code sharing". That's a completely different mindset. GPLv3 actually prevents codesharing on more than one occasion, or is forcing some people to release their code under multiple licenses.

Say, would you please stop writing bullshit?

GPL2 is less Free, as in "containing more ways to Restrict Freedoms".

GPL3 is more Free as in "adding more Restrictions on removing Freedoms".

You can also read it as: GPL3 is less Free as in "it is more restrictive to "have more Restrictions on removing Freedoms".

But hold on, a Freedom to "add a Restriction" is NOT Freedom, but is freedom to Restrict.
Freedom to Restrict is NOT Freedom.

[brosis]

Arguing which license is more used is like arguing which jeans color is better.
Black jeans are not better than blue jeans, people prefer black jeans because they find it more fitting for their use case (lifestyle), not because they are better.

And building an OS using BSD license is good for student projects, they will close it down anyway - who cares?

I think you don't really follow Linus Torvalds, he has always been critical of the FSF and RMS. Linux clearly stated on multiple occasions that he is not willing to release any of his own code under GPLv3, and that GPLv2 is the best licence for him. Linus seems to be a guy that has both feet on the ground and lives in a real world, opposed to an idealistic utopia.

The problem with GPLv3 is that it is anti "tivoization"/DRM, and tries to limit what will be done with the code, while GPLv2 is "pro code sharing". That's a completely different mindset. GPLv3 actually prevents codesharing on more than one occasion, or is forcing some people to release their code under multiple licenses.

Linus was never critical of FSF or RMS, but he is critical when it comes to relicensing the whole kernel, because he himself made a mistake to license it under GPL2 only.

How, he has to track down every single contributor and ask them if its ok to change license, which is really hard job and in his viewpoint its not not worthy for just adding "anti-tivioization".

But GPL3 is much more, hence Linux is licensed GPL2, LGPL2+, GPL3 + many more open licenses now, while Linus himself signs just as "(c) Linus Torvalds".

[koffie]

Yeah, but it's not that reason.

Linux cannot relicense the kernel because it's not his decision to make.

I think you don't really follow Linus Torvalds, he has always been critical of the FSF and RMS. Linux clearly stated on multiple occasions that he is not willing to release any of his own code under GPLv3, and that GPLv2 is the best licence for him. Linus seems to be a guy that has both feet on the ground and lives in a real world, opposed to an idealistic utopia.

The problem with GPLv3 is that it is anti "tivoization"/DRM, and tries to limit what will be done with the code, while GPLv2 is "pro code sharing". That's a completely different mindset. GPLv3 actually prevents codesharing on more than one occasion, or is forcing some people to release their code under multiple licenses.

[pingufunkybeat]

There is a reason Linus refuses to adopt GPLv3 for the kernel

Yeah, but it's not that reason.

Linux cannot relicense the kernel because it's not his decision to make.

[koffie]

Good joke! GPL is synonymous of success and BSD is a synonymous of big failure. BSD was in the game till GPL Linux has come. Linux killed BSD, but some necromancers keep this shit undead. Android isn't BSD, so get your facts straight. Mozilla isn't GPL... Clang/LLVM is a toy compared to GCC which compiles much more software for much more architectures and which is faster. Go home, because BSD is meaningless.

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.

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. It is just a joy to work with. A lot faster compile-times, certainly when using template code, and actual meaningful errors which most of the time point to exactly the right problem. No 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.

GCC still has an edge over clang regarding optimizations and platforms it compiles on/for, but LLVM is a lot more flexible, and has a cleaner code-base (which is normal for such a young project). Don't ridicule clang, because it WILL catch up, and this will happen faster than most people expect.

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

[koffie]

Good joke! GPL is synonymous of success and BSD is a synonymous of big failure. BSD was in the game till GPL Linux has come. Linux killed BSD, but some necromancers keep this shit undead. Android isn't BSD, so get your facts straight. Mozilla isn't GPL... Clang/LLVM is a toy compared to GCC which compiles much more software for much more architectures and which is faster. Go home, because BSD is meaningless.

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.

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.

GCC still has an edge over clang regarding optimizations and platforms it compiles on/for, but LLVM is a lot more flexible, and has a cleaner code-base (which is normal for such a young project). Don't ridicule clang, because it WILL catch up, and this will happen faster than most people expect.

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