Re: EGCS as a component

[Joe Buck <jbuck at Synopsys dot COM>]

>    There's gotta be a better way to organize the code, to enable tool
> writers to leverage the remarkably stable front-ends (C/C++ anyway) of 
> egcs. 

I'm afraid that's exactly what RMS is extremely worried about:
specifically, that proposed changes make it easier for *proprietary*
tools to use the gcc front ends or back ends.

The GPL isn't sufficient protection, since you could interface through
files or sockets or some such to the component.  (The GPL only covers
code linked into the same executable).

>   Any other approach taken by egcs would have to enable the rapid
>   development of the kind of tools listed above.

"would have to"?
egcs is of course free to completely ignore the problem.

I do think it would be nice to make it easier to do lint-like tools or
style-checking tools, but I think that such checks would need to be
more tightly integrated with the compiler and kept current.

It might be OK to dump some information (the kind needed by class browsers
and the like) on file positions where classes, functions, and methods
are declared.

>   Let me know if I'm just beeing silly and should be shot at dawn, or
>   whether there's any interest in my suggestion...

We'll try to keep the GNUically correct police off your back. :-)