Re: Notes from the GROW'10 workshop panel (GCC research opportunities workshop)

[Toon Moene <toon@moene.org>]

Basile Starynkevitch wrote:

> Toon Moene wrote:
>>
>> Mutatis mutandis, the same goes for GCC: There might be too many 
>> hurdles to use GCC in academia.  
> 
> This is probably true, however, the plugin ability of the just released 
> GCC 4.5 (or is it released tomorrow) helps probably significantly.

> My point is that academics can quite easily contribute to GPL software, 
> but much harder obtain the necessary legal authorizations to transfer 
> copyright to FSF. 

My answer was not as clear as necessary.  My (earlier) argument was from 
the perspective of the providers of the code (GCC) - it did not take 
into account those who *want* to contribute to GCC, but have a hard time 
to convince their respective legal departments (whether in academia or 
the commercial world).

In that case, a clear plugin interface (and accompanying documentation) 
can be instrumental in proving that an improvement "actually does the 
desired thing" and hence can be considered "the outcome of the academic 
research" (which then subsequently can be written up in a paper).

Thanks for pointing that out.

-- 
Toon Moene - e-mail: toon@moene.org - phone: +31 346 214290
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
At home: http://moene.org/~toon/
Progress of GNU Fortran: http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.5/changes.html