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Date:      Fri, 29 May 1998 21:34:54 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        alk@pobox.com
Cc:        chat@FreeBSD.ORG, nate@mt.sri.com
Subject:   Re: Fix for undefined "__error" and discussion of shared object versioning
Message-ID:  <199805292134.OAA15936@usr04.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <199805282249.RAA03682@pobox.com> from "Tony Kimball" at May 28, 98 05:49:19 pm

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> Various points:
> 
>   1 Non-portable != broken.  

Bah humbug.  That's *exactly* the definition of "broken".  Code
that fails to compile under GCC could be termed "non-portable to
GCC" otherwise.


>   2 I'm amazed to see this coming from Nate "Java" Williams!  
>     Gcc is the *platform*.  Gcc is what makes code portable, 
>     not ANSI, which is merely an idea, and not a platform.

So compile FreeBSD up for SPARC.  I'd like a copy...


>   3 People use gccisms because then they don't have to write asm, 
>     which is much *less* portable.

Using gcc'isms to get assembly features is not architecturally
transferrable.  It is better to seperate machine dependent and
independent code into seperate modules.  This may include the use
of machine-variant header files to get this, but that's irrelevent.


>   4 Are you planning on fixing them?  Egad, the number of ports!

If the patches are submitted back, I'm sure if the code is actively
maintained, the maintainers will be interested in increased code
portability.  I know I would be.  The larger the audience for
the code, the better.


> > Better/faster/less buggy compiler with a much less restrictive Copyright
> > seems like a win overall to me.
> 
> Remains to be seen, as far as I am concerned.  Various points:
> 
>   1 TenDRA should be compared to GCC 2.8.1, not 2.7.2.1.  

Agreed.

>   2 GPL should not be a restriction in practice for anyone
>     except someone who wants to retain source for a commercialization 
>     of added-value back-end code generation under FreeBSD, since there
>     are plenty of source-to-source compilers suitable as front-ends to 
>     GCC.  Since the amount of money to be made doing this is a negative
>     number, it's not a restriction in practice.

This should be allowed.  GPL disallows this.  Note that private
implementation languages would all have to be built as translaters
for your plan to be viable, and that's not a reasonable restriction.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.

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