Gcc as callable libraries (was: removing toxic emailers)

[Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>]

David,

for some reason or other, I did not get your mail, so I will
just reply copying in from the archive.

First, thanks for injecting some sanity into the discussion.

I will not discuss RMS' personal shortcomings or the lack of them.
In today's toxic political climate, such allegations are often
made up and weaponized without an effective defense for the
alleged wrongdoer.  I don't know the truth of the matter, and I make
a point of not finding out.

 > In many ways the last 8 years of my career have been
 > an attempt to get gcc to respond to the appearance of LLVM/clang (I've
 > added JIT-compilation, improved diagnostics, and I'm implementing a
 > static analysis pass)

And this is highly welcome, and has made gcc (including gfortran) a much
better compiler.  I well remember how you implemented the much better
colored error messages that gfortran has now.

 > Perhaps a pronouncement like: "try to make everything be consumable as
 > libraries with APIs, as well as as standalone binaries" might have
 > helped (and still could; can we do that please?)

That makes perfect sense, as LLVM shows, and is something that the
steering committee could decide for the project (or rather, it could
issue a pronouncement that this will not be opposed if some volunteer
does it).

I think this could be as close to an unanimous decision as there can
be among such a diverse community as the gcc developers.  If the FSF
takes umbrage at this, the ball is in their court.