Why Clang

[Reid Linnemann]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 7:17 AM, Wojciech Puchar
<wojtek at wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> wrote:
>>> Nothing wrong with productive flaming for me,
>>> but it's just not typical code of conduct in FreeBSD
>>> mailing list at all.
>>
>> Actually I can't remember any flame-war about system compilers - this is
>> the first one.
>
>
> because such situation like now never happened - changing C compiler to much
> worse because of political reasons.
>

I think you misspelled "licensing and sponsorship".

It's a fairly indisputable fact that without sponsoring users FreeBSD
cannot move forward, and those sponsoring users do not get a warm
fuzzy from the base system being built with a) An unmaintained GPLv2
licensed gcc or b) A maintained and current GPLv3 gcc with GPLv3
licensed libc. So between the options of 1) continuing to use an out
of date compiler 2) alienating sponsors and losing their financial and
developer support and 3) switching to a BSD licensed compiler/libc ...
it's fairly obvious to me that options 1) and 2) lead to irrelevance
and death of the project. clang being better than or on par with gcc
in every conceivable category right this instant is far less important
than continued existence and relevancy to sponsoring users, IMO.