Hello gNewSense users and developers,
You're probably aware already of the Clang C/C++ compiler, mainly developed by Apple under a permissive license. There has been a debate recently related to how Clang may be taking GCC's place. RMS and ESR participated in the discussion. <http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2014-01/msg00247.html> This issue by itself is probably not a problem for gNewSense or any fully free distro, because Clang is just a package. But what if some distros began building their package archives using Clang instead of GCC? Take a look here: <http://clang.debian.net/> And this is a recent update (also take a look at the comments): <http://sylvestre.ledru.info/blog/2014/03/21/rebuild-of-debian-using-clang> Like is says there, there's still work to do, but what happens if the official Debian archives move at some point to Clang (and maybe use GCC just for error checking, etc.)? It's still far away, but if gNewSense uses the same packages directly from Debian, it means: - It will be using Clang-built packages and help promote Clang further as a GCC replacement - If using GCC, things may fail because Debian packages may rely on Clang successful builds Again, this is theory at the moment, but I'd like you to take a moment to think about it and maybe discuss what would/should be done in such a case. Better think and brainstorm early, and be ready for something like this, than be surprised later (e.g. making a huge Clang-built archive build with GCC may be non-trivial, like the work done by those people for the debian clang project). I don't intend to cause a loud debate of course, but simply to raise the philosophical issue and discuss it. It's going to affect all free software, including distros. Making a statement early can affect the future of this "clang vs gcc" issue, for free software in general and for distros. -- fr33
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