From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 6 18:06:07 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B517C1065670 for ; Wed, 6 Jun 2012 18:06:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from matthew@FreeBSD.org) 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 203778FC22 for ; Wed, 6 Jun 2012 18:06:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from seedling.black-earth.co.uk (seedling.black-earth.co.uk [81.187.76.163]) (authenticated bits=0) by smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id q56I606D087197 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Wed, 6 Jun 2012 19:06:00 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from matthew@FreeBSD.org) X-DKIM: OpenDKIM Filter v2.5.2 smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk q56I606D087197 Authentication-Results: smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk/q56I606D087197; dkim=none (no signature); dkim-adsp=none Message-ID: <4FCF9C07.2000607@FreeBSD.org> Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2012 19:05:59 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:13.0) Gecko/20120601 Thunderbird/13.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org References: <4FCF9333.70201@speakeasy.org> In-Reply-To: <4FCF9333.70201@speakeasy.org> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.4.2 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enig91CE1C817C026024A8245F05" X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.97.4 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 autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk Cc: Subject: Re: Why Clang 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: Wed, 06 Jun 2012 18:06:07 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enig91CE1C817C026024A8245F05 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 06/06/2012 18:28, Thomas D. Dean wrote: > Has the discussion on why change to clang been made available? Yes, endlessly. Mostly on lists like freebsd-hackers@... and at various conferences and developer summits. Check the list archives. > I would like to know the reasoning. It's simple. gcc-4.2, which is what the base system compiler is derived from is: * fairly old * doesn't perform as well as more recent compilers * doesn't adhere to recently established standards Clearly an update was necessary. Unfortunately, later versions of gcc have switched to GPLv3, which is a viral license and unacceptable to the FreeBSD project. Therefore clang was chosen from amongst a number of alternatives as the best replacement. That makes it sound as if clang is a second class option compared to recent gcc, but this is certainly not the case: results from clang are comparable to the latest gcc versions and the design of clang is such that further optimizations and improvements can be readily incorporated. > Or, is it simply a gratuitous change? I can assure you that the changes were not made specifically to annoy you. Of course there were very solid technical reasons behind what was selected. Cheers, Matthew --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey --------------enig91CE1C817C026024A8245F05 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/ iEYEARECAAYFAk/PnAgACgkQ8Mjk52CukIytXACfU2lcpUTkoFNd/5TP1ycd7FwQ tfcAoIE3OreQLeNt0l5igkceM4j3MqFh =djx4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enig91CE1C817C026024A8245F05--