FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[David Weller]

This has probably been mentioned before, but if not...

In this month's GNU's Bulletin, an atricle indicated the League of
Programming Freedom (LPF) has dropped its boycott of Apple.  The Free
Software Foundation (FSF), which was backing the LPF, has also
announced it will no longer boycott Apple.  This means "the FSF will
now treat Apple operating systems like other non-free operating
systems."

This is, of course, welcome news by all.  For the Ada community, however,
it speaks volumes.  

-- 
      Frustrated with C, C++, Pascal, Fortran?  Ada95 _might_ be for you!
	  For all sorts of interesting Ada95 tidbits, run the command:
"finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.)
	

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Michael Hirasuna]

In article <3gnviq$epn@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM>, dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM
(David Weller) wrote:

> This has probably been mentioned before, but if not...
> 
> In this month's GNU's Bulletin, an atricle indicated the League of
> Programming Freedom (LPF) has dropped its boycott of Apple.  The Free
> Software Foundation (FSF), which was backing the LPF, has also
> announced it will no longer boycott Apple.  This means "the FSF will
> now treat Apple operating systems like other non-free operating
> systems."

I didn't know, this is wonderful news, thanks for the posting.

What caused this change of heart? How can I get a copy of the bulletin?

I guess the next milestone is when an FSF version of gcc becomes available
for the Mac.

-- 
Michael Hirasuna    |  hirasuna@acm.org

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Richard Kenner]

In article <hirasuna-0102951921230001@hirasuna.clark.net> hirasuna@acm.org (Michael Hirasuna) writes:
>I guess the next milestone is when an FSF version of gcc becomes available
>for the Mac.

I think you mean when the FSF GCC distribution supports the Mac.  This
will happen as soon as somebody sends me the necessary files.

The FSF itself does not do ports to other than GNU, but essentially
serves as a clearinghouse for the work of those who have done such
ports.

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Richard Kenner]

In article <hirasuna-0402950942330001@hirasuna.clark.net> hirasuna@acm.org (Michael Hirasuna) writes:
>> The FSF itself does not do ports to other than GNU, but essentially
>> serves as a clearinghouse for the work of those who have done such
>> ports.
>
>The FSF GCC distribution allows the selection of the host and target when
>it is built. If GNU is neccessary for this to happen, then the next
>milestone is when there is a GNU port available for the Apple PowerPC.
>Hopefully, the GNU OS will coexist with MacOS. Of course, this may all be
>moot if OS2 and OS2 GNAT gets ported to the Mac PowerPC, and OS2 GNAT
>becomes multi-targetted.

I have no idea what you are saying here.

As you say, GCC is automatically a cross-compiler since you specify the
host and target when you configure it.

But there is no requirement for either to be GNU.

Perhaps you confuse "XYZ is supported by ABC" with "XYZ works".  These are
two very different concepts.  Besides, as I said in a previous post,
the FSF does not "support" any software whatsoever.

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Richard Kenner]

In article <3gr7ql$39u@rational.rational.com> rlk@rational.com (Bob Kitzberger) writes:
>Am I the only one that finds it ironic that a group calling itself
>the League of Programming Freedom has prevented gcc from being ported
>to the Mac?  

You misrepresent the record here.  The FSF cannot prevent GCC from
being ported to any machine, since it is under the GPL and it did not
prevent such a port from being performed.

However, the FSF did not assist in such port, either before or
after the fact, though there was certainly such a port.

The reason for this is that if Apple had been successful in their
legal action, people would no longer have the freedom to write
programs such as GCC.

It would have been hypocritical of the FSF to support a company
whose aims were to prevent the FSF and other similar groups from
producing free software.

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Larry Kilgallen, LJK Software]

In article <3gnviq$epn@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM>, dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (David Weller) writes:
> This has probably been mentioned before, but if not...
> 
> In this month's GNU's Bulletin, an atricle indicated the League of
> Programming Freedom (LPF) has dropped its boycott of Apple.  The Free
> Software Foundation (FSF), which was backing the LPF, has also
> announced it will no longer boycott Apple.  This means "the FSF will
> now treat Apple operating systems like other non-free operating
> systems."
> 
> This is, of course, welcome news by all.  For the Ada community, however,
> it speaks volumes.  

I am not sure what volumes it speaks.  Could someone elaborate ?

Does this mean that GNAT authors would just make a version of their compiler?

Does this mean they would define packages for the (many) Macintosh toolboxes?

Does it mean they would reach a cooperative agreement with Apple for periodic
release of the latest Apple toolbox definitions as is done for the commercial
third parties who produce C, Pascal and Fortran compilers?

(Not that proper Ada bindings are as easy as those others, which are done
somewhat automatically.)

I work with computers for a living (rather than use computers to work
with Physics for a living or some such), and it has probably been 25 years
since I wrote a program which did not have to be tightly connected with
the operating system.  As far as commercial products are concerned, it
is not feasible to achieve the "look and feel" expected by customers on
(Macintosh, Windows, VMS, Unix) machines without using a lot of operating
system specific calls.

And presuming I tempt a GNAT expert into responding, would GNAT likely
output both 68000 and PowerPC code, or would it require a Macro assembler,
which relegates it to what some view as the inferior MPW environment?

Larry Kilgallen

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Robert Dewar]

Larry asks all sorts of questions about what GNAT would look like on a MAC.
Larry, why not do the port yourself, the ncessary code generators are there!
Then you can answer these questions to your own satisfaction :-)

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc

[Larry Kilgallen, LJK Software]

In article <3h6nud$gdb@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

> Larry asks all sorts of questions about what GNAT would look like on a MAC.
> Larry, why not do the port yourself, the ncessary code generators are there!

	1) Lack of technical competence
	2) I have to work for a living

> Then you can answer these questions to your own satisfaction :-)

Groucho Marx said "I would never join a club which allowed ME as a member."
Extend that to remarks about eating ones own cooking.  :-)

********

But seriously, I am curious when you say the necessary code generators
are there.  If GNAT is not presently on Macintosh, how is there a code
generator for 68K (or PowerPC, for that matter, since MacOS seems to be
the only consumer of those chips so far).

If it is not obvious, I have only used commercial compilers.

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc

[Richard Kenner]

In article <1995Feb7.090613.9062@eisner> kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen, LJK Software) writes:
>But seriously, I am curious when you say the necessary code generators
>are there.

Because they are.  Irrespective of WHY they were developed, the
question of whether or not they exist is not one open to debate.  Go
look at a GCC distribution.

>If GNAT is not presently on Macintosh, how is there a code
>generator for 68K (or PowerPC, for that matter, since MacOS seems to be
>the only consumer of those chips so far).

The 68K was the CPU used in the Sun3, which was for quite a while the
major (indeed essentially only) workstation used in Universities and
many other places.

The PowerPC port was done since it is very similar to the POWER
architecture used by the RS/6000, which GCC has supported since its
inception.

Motorola and IBM have expressed interest in the PowerPC GCC port.

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc

[Larry Kilgallen, LJK Software]

In article <3h8qve$e02@cmcl2.NYU.EDU>, kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:

> > But seriously, I am curious when you say the necessary code generators
> > are there.
> 
> Because they are.  Irrespective of WHY they were developed, the
> question of whether or not they exist is not one open to debate.  Go
> look at a GCC distribution.

Well not all of us have that available, or a wideband connection to the
Internet, but I do thank you for going on to explain how the two code
generators arrived.  Understanding the origins is sometimes as important
as understanding the facts.

> Motorola and IBM have expressed interest in the PowerPC GCC port.

Even in non-commercial endeavors, I would feel hard-pressed to compete
with Motorola and IBM :-).

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc

[Robert Dewar]

The 68000 has been and still is VERY widely used outside Apple. It is an
important player in the embedded market, and a significant use of GCC for
the 68K is for such embedded products. Thinking that the 68K is Apple
only is very misleading. Other machines that use the 68K are the Amiga
(for which there is a GNAT port being worked on), and the Atari.

As for the power PC, it is just the way things worked out that Apple came
out with the first PPC machines, but IBM is of course expected to be a major
player in PPC based machines.

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate fo

[Brian Hanson]

In article 9062@eisner, kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen, LJK Software) writes:
>
>But seriously, I am curious when you say the necessary code generators
>are there.  If GNAT is not presently on Macintosh, how is there a code
>generator for 68K (or PowerPC, for that matter, since MacOS seems to be
>the only consumer of those chips so far).

The sun 3 platform used the 68020 chip.  gcc has been running on that for a long
time.  There is also an rs6000 version of gcc/gnat.  The rs6000 uses the power
chip set which is fairly close to the power pc instruction set.

Brian
brh@cray.com

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate fo

[Richard Kenner]

In article <1995Feb8.114712.3756@driftwood.cray.com> brh@cray.com writes:
>There is also an rs6000 version of gcc/gnat.  The rs6000 uses the power
>chip set which is fairly close to the power pc instruction set.

Though this is off-topic, I think I should say something about this
families of architectures, since there is a lot of confusion out there
(not necessarily in this thread).

The POWER architecture first appeared a number of years ago in the IBM
product known as the RS/6000.  The processor itself didn't have a
public name, but most people referered to it by its last IBM code name
(RIOS).

The PowerPC architecture is neither a superset nor a subset of POWER.
However, the instructions present in both is a very large subset of
both; i.e., the differences between the two are a relatively small
number of instructions.  One other difference is that the mnemonics
used in the documentation of both architectures differ, even for the
instructions in both; GCC has a option that says which mnemonics to
use which is orthogonal (except in its default) to what architecture
you're compiling for.

The PowerPC architecture is a 64-bit architecture with defined
subsets.  All announced implementations omit the 64-bit instructions
and some omit a few of floating-point instructions (that are not in
the POWER architecture).  You also view it as having optional
supersets consisting of those instructions.

What is popularly known as the "PowerPC" chip is more properly known
by its Motorola part number, MPC601.  This is *not* a pure PowerPC
processor.  In fact, it implements the *union* of the POWER
architecture and the smallest defined subset of PowerPC (less the
64-bit and the extra FP instructions).  GCC knows this and when
compiling for the 601 (the default when you say "powerpc") it will use
either POWER or PowerPC instructions, depending on which are more
efficient for a particular expression.  The MPC603 and MPC604 do not
implement the POWER-only instructions.

To make life even *more* interesting, IBM recently announced products
based on the POWER2 architecture.  This architecture is a superset of
the POWER architecture.  Some, but not all, of these added
instructions are also in the optional part of the PowerPC
architecture.  GCC also supports POWER2.

This is probably much more than most people want to know on this
topic, but I thought I should straighten out the confusion.

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc

[Bradley Ross]

In article <3h8qve$e02@cmcl2.nyu.edu>,
Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote:
>The 68K was the CPU used in the Sun3, which was for quite a while the
>major (indeed essentially only) workstation used in Universities and
>many other places.
>
The 68K CPU was used in a number of different workstations in addition
to the Sun 3 workstation.  I believe it was also used on the Apollo
workstations in the past and is currently used on the Commodore Amiga.
Both GCC and GNAT have been ported to the Commodore Amiga, although
the reference for the GNAT port stated that the version they used
required an immense amount of memory to compile itself.  Is the new
version more efficient in this regard?

>The PowerPC port was done since it is very similar to the POWER
>architecture used by the RS/6000, which GCC has supported since its
>inception.
>
>Motorola and IBM have expressed interest in the PowerPC GCC port.

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Stan Shebs]

In article <3h3hiv$e49@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

   From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
   Date: 5 Feb 1995 16:56:47 -0500

     "Actually, given the amount of Mac support I've seen in the Ada
      community, I can say the GNAT port will be out about 24 hours after
      the gcc port.  The essential question is: When will there be a
      current gcc port (with the expected tools)?

   THen put some of this enthusiasm to work doing the GCC port, it is not
   that much work. We have ported GCC to completely new architectures in
   a month. In this case, both for the 68K and the Power architectures,
   the main work is done. Doing a straightforward port to MPW can't be
   that difficult, especially since you can borrow some of the code from
   the old outdated version. I should think that it is no more than a
   couple of weeks work by someone familiar with MPW. A native port is
   more work to be sure, but still quite within reach.

Ho ho ho! Sorry Robert, you've exposed your ignorance of Macs and MPW.

Where shall we start?  The MPW scripting language, which is quite
different from any Unix scripting language?  The MPW make, which is
also quite different from Unix make? The lack of fork/exec, which the
GCC driver wants to use to run cpp, cc1, as, and ld?  And speaking of
as and ld, which ones were you expecting to use?  Did you know that
the MPW assembler requires *declarations* of function and variable
symbols *before* they're referenced, or that it will magically
transform global refs into a5-relative refs?  If you were thinking of
using gas and gld instead, did you know that BFD and some of its hairy
macros will cause MPW C to fail spectacularly?  Have you thought about
the Mac's lack of preemptive multitasking and what this implies if you
want to run any compiles in the background?

These problems can be (and have been) worked around, but doing it
correctly - and maintainably - is a lot more than a couple weeks work,
even for someone who's intimately familiar with GNU, Macs, and MPW.

							Stan Shebs
							Cygnus Support
							shebs@cygnus.com

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Robert Dewar]

I don't think an MPW port is that hard given the original Apple port as
a starting point. Yes, I quite realize that it won't be up to a level
that Cygnus would consider polished enough to charge significant $$$
for support, but I definitely think it could be done (and actually have
talked to someone who knows this stuff REALLY well who shared this opinion).
There is a huge gap between something that is usable, and something that
is up to productizable standards.

If it is so difficult to generate assembler (I don't think it is), then
why not generate C. A port of GCC to generate skeleton low level C would
be quite easy to do, certainly no harder than a from-scratch alpha port
for example!

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Mats Weber]

In article <3h8jpv$2iq@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:

> If it is so difficult to generate assembler (I don't think it is), then
> why not generate C. A port of GCC to generate skeleton low level C would
> be quite easy to do, certainly no harder than a from-scratch alpha port
> for example!

The people at DEC SRC who did the Modula-3 compiler were not happy with
low-level C as an intermediate language. (I haven't got the reference with
me, but I could find it if someone needs it).

Re: FSF drops Apple boycott, opens gate for GNAT, etc.

[Robert Dewar]

Mats in commenting on low level C, you are thinking of a much higher level
than I am. I am thinking of a subset at about the typical RISC machine
level