This is the mail archive of the
gcc@gcc.gnu.org
mailing list for the GCC project.
Re: GCC's hardware requirements - Where is the freedom? [was: Re: gcc 3.5 integration branch proposal]
- From: Bernd Jendrissek <berndj at prism dot co dot za>
- To: Andrew Pinski <pinskia at physics dot uc dot edu>
- Cc: gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org, Matthias Benkmann <msb at winterdrache dot de>
- Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:19:56 +0200
- Subject: Re: GCC's hardware requirements - Where is the freedom? [was: Re: gcc 3.5 integration branch proposal]
- References: <19D7D955-4AF7-11D8-8143-000393A6D2F2@physics.uc.edu>
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 07:16:55PM -0800, Andrew Pinski wrote:
> On Jan 19, 2004, at 19:13, Andrew Pinski wrote:
> >Someone else wrote:
> >>Free software that requires a machine that most people in 3rd world
> >>countries cannot afford IS NOT FREE (as in "freedom"), even if it is
> >>distributed under the GPL. GCC is at the very heart of the GNU
> >>system and the free software world. There will be more and more free
> >>software projects that require new GCC versions. This means that
> >>there will be more and more projects that are off-limits for a large
> >>group of people, if GCC's hardware requirements continue to rise.
Hear, hear! (But I must admit I don't do template gymnastics so I'm not
personally affected by "catastrophic" compile times. But I have noticed
bootstraps taking longer.)
> Oh, I forgot to mention one more thing.
> From <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html>:
>
> But the explanation for ``free software'' is simple--a person who has
> grasped the idea of ``free speech, not free beer'' will not get it
> wrong again. There is no such succinct way to explain the official
> meaning of ``open source'' and show clearly why the natural definition
> is the wrong one.
But we all know that without beer, you can't speak. :)
Free speech, not free beer is fine, but it misses the point that if I
can't afford my freedom, there's no freedom (for me) at all. The whole
point of freedom is that people *have* it, no?
When I start FSF South Africa in 400 years, do you want me to tell the
kids in Khayelitsha's (a shanty town on the outskirts of Cape Town,
suffice it to say that people there are, er, poor) schools that they
must just get themselves a 17THz 800EB machine themselves, since, after
all, they have their "freedom" to use, modify, and redistribute the GCC
code (that they can't afford to use)?
bernd
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
iD8DBQFADPKv/FmLrNfLpjMRAj4gAJ9L8zVzqlmG424bcicqB6VhkRZLBACfdD1j
6jrv7XSnYLaRJCadIYUdKKc=
=6KH2
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----