nemesis wrote:
> Darren New escreveu:
>> nemesis wrote:
>>> extension for gcc, so without gcc, there would be no plugin of yours.
>>
>> This is not true. Someone else may write a gcc-compatible compiler.
> 
> Down to the devious plugin architecture?! 

Someone may write a word processor compatible down to the undocumented 
binary file format?!?

Maybe someone likes your gcc plug-in so much they want you to port it to 
*their* compiler.  Whoops, sorry! You can't!

>> it may be a large codebase that works for any compiler, and I want it 
>> to work for gcc also.
> 
> Why?  You don't like the damned GPL stuff, remember?

I didn't say that. I said I don't always like what it does to my employment, 
and I said I don't like how the FSF is trying to force unrelated software to 
be GPLed. But most of the developer tools are pretty nice.

> BTW, all your examples do not constitute a single program running in the 
> same process space, they are very different from app and lib or plugin.

I'm not sure what "single address space" has to do with it. Certainly my 
program runs in the same address space as the Linux kernel, or the Linux 
kernel wouldn't be able to fill my buffers with data when I call read().

>> If every Linux application you wrote was required to use the GPL, 
>> would you find software companies like Adobe porting their software to 
>> it?
> 
> You talk like as if the plugin is an external app running in a "gcc 
> kernel space".

It is, as much as FLASH is. It's an "external app" in that it doesn't 
incorporate any of the code from GCC into itself.

>> You can certainly license code with a license that says "if you use 
>> this compiler, everything you compile with it belongs to us."  As you 
>> say, people don't do that, because people wouldn't use the compiler if 
>> they did.
> 
> GCC doesn't say that, so I don't know how the example is any pertinent.

Right. I was trying to explain *why* it doesn't say that, even tho it could 
say that with at least as much authority as the plug-in architecture could.

>> I find it interesting that in the areas where FSF *is* the leader, 
>> they wind up acting like monopolists.
> 
> Like in areas where they are actually the original developers of GNU 
> software?  

No, like in areas where the product is so good it has pushed most 
competitors out. Like, Sun shipping the gcc compiler instead of continuing 
to improve their own.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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