From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jan 21 13:33:14 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3B2C51065670 for ; Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:33:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: from smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (smtp6.infracaninophile.co.uk [IPv6:2001:8b0:151:1:3cd3:cd67:fafa:3d78]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 92D128FC17 for ; Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:33:13 +0000 (UTC) Received: from seedling.black-earth.co.uk (seedling.black-earth.co.uk [IPv6:2001:8b0:151:1:fa1e:dfff:feda:c0bb]) (authenticated bits=0) by smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id q0LDX9gY095163 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:33:10 GMT (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) X-DKIM: OpenDKIM Filter v2.4.2 smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk q0LDX9gY095163 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=infracaninophile.co.uk; s=201001-infracaninophile; t=1327152790; bh=QeIpdHV/YpPBvw+HbSqbpmzk0JiI3TPkEtQCG6kIYWc=; h=Message-ID:Date:From:MIME-Version:To:Subject:References: In-Reply-To:Content-Type:Cc; b=g1+WNbrE2NwoiFXZ8gmQzsLmgTnlE3GvtWayQyMjE1TCtnoknUrMvoTfLGP2ymdaj GWx21OljpYKMcG0hUzNJFAz0GXdxbQjl66sS8tF1A8sIJO0p2sGkVZKEfvvPYq4Jhj MeeVZwHOuHYyzP6+yC/1tmqPTVappqPYvJ/eAczw= Message-ID: <4F1ABE8D.2090906@infracaninophile.co.uk> Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:33:01 +0000 From: Matthew Seaman User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:9.0) Gecko/20111222 Thunderbird/9.0.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <4F1AAB66.5070100@herveybayaustralia.com.au> In-Reply-To: <4F1AAB66.5070100@herveybayaustralia.com.au> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.3.4 OpenPGP: id=60AE908C Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enigB93A7172E83B6C8DCDA09437" X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.97.3 at lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=5.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk Subject: Re: Clang - what is the story? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:33:14 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enigB93A7172E83B6C8DCDA09437 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 21/01/2012 12:11, Da Rock wrote: > I've been seeing a lot of hoorays and pats on the back and a general > feeling satisfaction in being able to use clang to compile FreeBSD and > ports. The only reason I can see from searching is a need to get away > from gcc (which is tried and tested since the beginning of time) which > is now apparently GPLv3. >=20 > Can someone offer some clarity as to the importance of this? I'm > guessing the that stepping away from GPL is generally a good thing, > especially if there is something similar with similar license structure= > to BSD; I just can't understand the rush of it. The problem is exactly the GPLv3. The version of gcc in the base system is gcc-4.2, the last version licensed under the old GPLv2 terms, but now looking quite elderly and not resulting in the best performance. > Even under GPL anything built using gcc can be licensed as you like, so= > I doubt it could be that. >=20 > I'm not skeptical, just curious- trying to get my head around some of > the dev side of things :) Unfortunately, no -- you can't necessarily license anything compiled with a GPLv3 compiler using whatever license you prefer. For instance, one problem is that executables will be linked against libraries which are part of the compiler -- and the viral nature of GPLv3 means that the resulting programs have in their turn to be licensed under GPLv3. That's not acceptable for FreeBSD, hence the decision to switch to a BSD licensed toolchain using clang. 9.0 is really an intermediate step in the changeover -- gcc and clang are both provided in the base system and its a matter of administrative choice which one is chosen for compiling the system. One consequence of the change is that it will become more common to install a recent version of gcc from ports to facilitate compiling gcc-only software, with the rest of ports typically compiled with either that ports-gcc or the base clang. This is fairly new at the moment, and there still needs to be a deal of debugging effort put into making the ports work well with compilers other than the base gcc-4.2. Cheers, Matthew --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard Flat 3 PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate JID: matthew@infracaninophile.co.uk Kent, CT11 9PW --------------enigB93A7172E83B6C8DCDA09437 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.16 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk8avpUACgkQ8Mjk52CukIynVACgiSENDLBRLZSzNQpVFAvM1+jd oQMAnjhn0wdfr3aNht0tJRriHtyNj/bC =BJ/k -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enigB93A7172E83B6C8DCDA09437--