On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Basile STARYNKEVITCH <bas...@starynkevitch.net> wrote: > Richard Guenther wrote: >> Ah, you mean like doing the tuples conversion as plugin? Or to >> build the cgraph infrastructure and IPA optimization infrastructure >> as plugin? I guess what you say is - "stop developing gcc! develop >> plugins!"? > > To be more precise, I believe that some few plugins (not the ones I Basile > will write) might perhaps replace the branch role as experimental ground > for GCC. And I don't see any issue here, on the contrary. Plugins are for > their users perhaps easier to try than a whole GCC branch. What's the > difference between writing a plugin and writing a branch nobody will use? So > perhaps people would start plugins instead of starting their branch. Why > should that be bad? I feel it is very positive!
Because it encourages forking, especially because of... > I insist that the copyright to FSF transfer is a big brake to enter GCC > development. And this brake is not effective inside plugins. Plugins can be > simply GPLv3, but not FSF copyrighted. I am sure it makes an important > difference for putative developpers (more precisely for their bosses). ...this. If you don't like to transfer copyright to the FSF, fine. But don't expect the FSF GCC program (i.e. us) to assist you in subverting itself. Plugins should add special functionality that is needed for some niche application of GCC, but not replace internals of GCC itself. Ciao! Steven
