Re: Using of parse tree externally

[Benjamin Scherrey <scherrey at switchco dot com>]

Joe Buck wrote:
> 
> >       I'm very pleased that someone else here has a clue about freedom. Its
> > not freedom if some are more "free" than others.
> 
> I am against any notion of trying to encumber file formats, and I can
> assure you that RMS would also reject it, because he's about the most
> consistent person I know.

	I wouldn't presume to suppose that you or RMS would think otherwise and
hope you didn't read my posting as implying that. However, there are
others who suggest it which concerns me (as it apparently and rightfully
does you).
 
> As for the rest of your piece, I'd rather not argue political philosophy
> on a development list.  Perhaps we can extend Godwin's law, and also kill
> discussions when someone writes "statist" rather than "Nazi".

	There is no political philosophy being debated. I specifically made the
point in order to differentiate between technical and "non-free
political" (to use a synonym for statist if you prefer) issues
surrounding this question. I wouldn't jump too quickly on killing
discussions that contain certain words, especially when the context is
clearly germane to the thread. I am bothered when arguments that try to
clarify and weed out "anti-free" concepts and focus on the technical and
"freedom" ideas seem to invite censorship whereas the messages that
contain such "non-free" ideas and no technical content go otherwise
unchallanged. Indeed those of us who reply to such messages do not even
hint at (or agree with) the idea of censoring them, we are simply trying
to address the true goals that are implied by the original poster with a
solution that focuses on freedom and technical concepts. I should hope
that we could all agree that this is in the best interest of gcc and the
user community.

	regards & later,

		Ben Scherrey