> Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2021 at 6:09 PM > From: "Siddhesh Poyarekar" <siddh...@gotplt.org> > To: "NightStrike" <nightstr...@gmail.com>, "Ville Voutilainen" > <ville.voutilai...@gmail.com> > Cc: "GCC Development" <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> > Subject: Re: A suggestion for going forward from the RMS/FSF debate > > On 4/17/21 12:11 AM, NightStrike via Gcc wrote: > > I was under the (likely incorrect, please enlighten me) impression > > that the meteoric rise of LLVM had more to do with the license > > allowing corporate contributors to ship derived works in binary form > > without sharing proprietary code. Intel, IBM, nVidia, etc. are > > I think this is a blinkered view. Sure, there are companies that build > proprietary toolchains using llvm as the base but I would argue that it > is the *result* of the rise of llvm and not the cause. > > The cause IMO is accessibility to other projects, most notably compiler > researchers and students who find it a lot easier to target llvm than > gcc because compiler-as-a-library. License may have been a factor for > some of those uses (e.g. I know some who think copyleft is not free > enough and BSD style licensing is the *real* freedom), but concluding > that it is the major reason is to delude ourselves. > > It is also the reason why gcc does not even figure in situations where a > larger project would need AOT or JIT compilation; we had to concede that > ground all because of the FSF/GNU fears that companies would make > proprietary compilers out of a gcc compiler-as-a-library. > > Of computer science graduates I have encountered over the last decade, I > know few who started their journey with gcc and they were all in the > initial part of the decade. In recent years I don't think I encountered > any student who works on gcc; many even start with the assumption that > gcc is in maintenance mode.
For military focused PhDs, gcc is used. > So to summarize, the reasons why llvm is gaining traction *today* (I'm > sure there are more): > > - Compiler-as-a-library - llvm is the first choice in FOSS projects and > use cases are exploding with gcc nowhere in sight > > - Mindshare - most students and researchers are focused on it > > - Funding - llvm has a much stronger funding ecosystem than gcc. This > includes direct funding from the foundation and development workforce > from various organizations and universities. You will not get funding grants in the US if you mention free software, because the US Department of Commerce does not allow it. > - License - Companies are building proprietary solutions on top of llvm. > > Siddhesh >
