Fedora 35 Proposal Would Allow More Packages To Be Built Using LLVM Clang

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Fedora 35 Proposal Would Allow More Packages To Be Built Using LLVM Clang

Right now Fedora Linux predominantly uses GCC as the default system compiler except for cases where the upstream project only supports LLVM/Clang. But moving forward packagers working on Fedora could decide to switch to using LLVM Clang for building a given package where it is worthwhile...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-35-More-LLVM-Clang

[Aryma]

less gnu = more happiness for me

[ms178]

+1 Seems to be a pragmatic choice, just build with the compiler which suits the needs of the packager the best.

[You-]

If Red Hat doesnt keep Firefox building with GCC, no one will.

I hope this change is rejected.

GCC is valuable for everyone. It's failure or loss will hurt the whole ecosystem. It already has enough of a challenge with major corporations (like Apple) being desperate to not use is and smaller ones like Mozilla preferring LLVM despite its community down sides.

[dekernel]

If Red Hat doesnt keep Firefox building with GCC, no one will.

... like Mozilla preferring LLVM despite its community down sides.

I guess I am curious as to what community down sides do you see?

[You-]

AFAIK The GCC is protected by stronger copyleft in the GPLv3.

That was the reason why Apple stopped contributing when the licence was updated to GPLv3 and above.

LLVM is apache licenced so it is possible to make modifications that are closed source and not operable without proprietary agreement.

[kvuj]

AFAIK The GCC is protected by stronger copyleft in the GPLv3.

That was the reason why Apple stopped contributing when the licence was updated to GPLv3 and above.

LLVM is apache licenced so it is possible to make modifications that are closed source and not operable without proprietary agreement.

Sadly in terms of security, adress sanitizer and more, GCC has trouble keeping up. It's hard to compete when giant megacorporations are pouring millions into a compiler.

If I remember correctly, GCC still produces slightly faster binaries and it currently supports many more architectures that LLVM ever will, but I'd prefer some security features like -mspeculative-load-hardening and forward-edge function calls validation (CFI) as well as LTO support in the kernel over a 1% performance improvement.

Oh and cross compiling with GCC sucks. Also whoever thought that having GCC require a 32-bit version of glibc installed even on 64 bit arches needs to reevaluate their life choices.

[Ub42]

I thought it was already settled in a previous fesco issue. And if run-time performance is targeted, why limit the choice to clang? What about AOCC, ICC, ICX...

[skeevy420]

I guess I am curious as to what community down sides do you see?

The nefarious or tin foil hat view -- It can be seen as a do one thing while saying another license because it can allow a company or individual to say they you support open source when they're really doing just the minimal to keep it running while keeping a bunch of optimizations and secret sauce behind closed doors. Mwahaha. All your -O4's are belong to us.

The reality is most companies are going with it for a combination of the above and patent/license/etc reasons. For an example, say there's something in one of their patents that can be added to a compiler that can make their stuff work better but they won't be able to open source it until 2024. Being able to use it behind closed doors with real world products and a modern compiler allows them to get their ducks in a row for a proper open source release whenever that is able to happen. In that view it can be beneficial to FOSS and open source.

The woke reason would be the name of the license itself. Most everything else named after Native Americans are being renamed. By supporting a license with the name Apache you and your company are supporting systemic, institutionalized racism and cultural appropriation. Permissive licenses allow an entity to do one thing while saying another, basically what happened with most all Native American agreements, so, yeah, if you're woke-tarded you could correlate that into some ammo go after a new target.

[fafreeman]

The woke reason would be the name of the license itself. Most everything else named after Native Americans are being renamed. By supporting a license with the name Apache you and your company are supporting systemic, institutionalized racism and cultural appropriation. Permissive licenses allow an entity to do one thing while saying another, basically what happened with most all Native American agreements, so, yeah, if you're woke-tarded you could correlate that into some ammo go after a new target.

please don't give them ideas... they already removed the indian girl off the land with land o lakes. i don't want them to keep purging native americans off the land with everything else. native americans have suffered enough. can't keep killing off any representation they can get.

i hate this segregation culture we are in. only X can use X, etc.