Apple-employed maintainers (was Re: Apple, iPhone, and GPLv3 troubles)

[Chris Lattner]

On Sep 24, 2008, at 8:02 AM, Duncan Sands wrote:

>>> However if GPLv3 is such a huge issue
>>> at Apple, it does make one wonder if llvm will ever see a gcc  
>>> front-end newer
>>> than the current 4.2 one.
>>
>> The LLVM folks are writing a new frontend anyhow.  In the future they
>> presumably plan to stop using the gcc frontend.  gcc's code is so
>> tangled anyhow, it's not like using the gcc frontend somehow makes
>> LLVM compile code the same way gcc does.
>
> I'm quite interested in porting llvm-gcc to gcc head, in order to
> get better Ada support.

As Duncan says here, Apple and the LLVM Project really are separable  
entities.  As a developer on the LLVM Project, I'd love to see a new  
version of llvm-gcc based on ToT GCC.  I'm not sure how technically  
feasible it is, but it would be even better for future versions of  
llvm-gcc to be based on the new GCC plugin model.

-Chris