> Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2021 at 10:22 AM > From: "Mark Wielaard" <m...@klomp.org> > To: "Jonathan Wakely" <jwakely....@gmail.com> > Cc: "GCC Development" <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> > Subject: GCC association with the FSF > > Hi, > > Lets change the subject now that this is about GCC and the FSF. > > On Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 01:46:29PM +0100, Jonathan Wakely via Gcc wrote: > > Probably unintentionally, but he has allowed the GNU Project to become > > a nasty cult of personality. The FSF seems to be imploding (with mass > > resignations in the past week). I don't think GCC benefits from being > > associated with either of them. > > I admit it isn't looking very good and their last announcement is > certainly odd: https://status.fsf.org/notice/3833062 > > But apparently the board is still meeting this week to discuss and > might provide a better statement about the way out of this. So lets > give them a couple more days before writing them off completely. > > > Is there any incident where FSF being the copyright holder for GCC has > > made a difference? > > Yes, at least in my experience it has been helpful that the FSF held > copyright of code that had been assigned by various individuals and > companies. It allowed the merger of GNU Classpath and libgcj for > example. There have been various intances where it was helpful that > the FSF could unilatrally adjust the license terms especially when the > original contributor couldn't be found or didn't exist (as company) > anymore. > > And it is really helpful that we don't have to ask permission of every > individual contributor to be able to create the GCC manual (because > the GPL code and GFDL text could otherwise not be combined) but that > the FSF can grant an exception to one of the developers to create it.
I have been discussing with Richard Stallman how we could get compatibility between the GFDL and the other licences. > > Are there any GPL violations involving GCC code > > that were resolved only because all copyright resides with a single > > entity, that couldn't have been resolved on behalf of individual > > copyright holders? > > I think it has been very helpful preventing those violations. If you > only have individual copyright holders instead of an organisation with > the means to actually resolve such violations people pay much more > attention to play by the rules. See for example the linux kernel > project. I believe there are so many GPL violations precisely because > almost no individual has the means to take up a case. > > > Are we still worried about BigCorp trying to do a proprietary fork of > > GCC? Because BigCorp, OtherCorp etc. have shown that they would prefer > > to create a new toolchain from scratch rather than use GNU code. And > > if EvilCorp want to make their own proprietary compiler with secret > > optimizations, they'll just use LLVM instead of bothering to violate > > the GPL. The work done to make it impossible to steal GCC code was a > > success: nobody is even interested in stealing it now. There is an > > easier option. > > I admit that the only way proprietary compiler writers can compete > with GCC is by producing a lax-permissive licensed compiler is an odd > way to win for Free Software. But we should still make sure that GCC > itself makes it so that users can actually get the sources of the > compiler they are using and not just some sources that might or might > not correspond to the binary they are using. Making sure that the code > reaches actual users and not just some corporate hackers to create a > proprietary compiler is what counts IMHO. And using strong copyleft > and having a shared copyright pool of code held by an entity that can > enforce that is still necessary IMHO. > > > Can we break our (already weak) ties to GNU? > > I hope GCC stays part of GNU, but that we might reconsider whether it > is in the best interest of GNU and GCC as Free Software project to > still be associated with the FSF. The GNU Assembly is having a similar > discussion right now > https://lists.gnu.tools/postorius/lists/assembly.lists.gnu.tools/ > > Cheers, > > Mark >
