On Mon, 2 Aug 2010 01:35:33 am Kevan Hashemi wrote:
Objective Modula-2 wrote:
There was a long discussion about the pro and contra of plug-ins some time last year (or even earlier) on the GCC developer mailing list. A great number of commenters actually suggested that the API should regularly be changed at random to break anyone's code on purpose.
Am I understanding you correctly: people writing GPL code are actively trying to make it harder for other people to use their work? If that is true, they are betraying the spirit upon which GPL was founded in the first place: to share one's work and save everyone else a lot of trouble.
I don't want to get into a long and tedious debate about the GPL, but let me just say this: the primary purpose of the GPL is not merely to make it easy for others to use software you have written. If it were, they would use a BSD-style licence. The primary purpose of the GPL is equally to ensure that when others use your software, their improvements remain under the GPL and therefore available to others still.
In context, which you deleted, the (alleged) fear of some GCC developers is that support for a plugin style front end to the compiler allegedly makes it easy for people to bypass the GPL. So they're not just making it difficult for people to use GCC on a whim, it is to support the #1 primary purpose of the GPL: to ensure that software remains accessible to all and not locked up in proprietary walled gardens.
Your accusation against the GCC team is a serious one. Can you point me to the GCC forum discussions in question with a web link? Because if what you say is true, then I'm going to have to get away from GCC.
Surely it depends on who it is saying this? If they are lead developers in the GCC community, or Richard Stallman, then your fears are justified. If they're random Internet fly-by commentators on a public mailing list shooting off at the mouth with no influence and no likelihood of becoming lead developers, then let them rant and froth at the mouth.