Re: Problems with pkgsrc on NetBSD-5.2

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%bec.de@localhost>]

On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 07:44:26PM +0000, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> > My recollection of the discussion was that the issue was recognised as
> > significant - to the extent that all gpl3 licenced code is kept in a
> > separate section of the source tree (external/gpl3), which currently
> > contains autoconf, binutils, gcc & gdb.
> 
> > When it has been subsequently raised it has been made clear that gpl3
> > cannot be introduced to code outside that area, whether it be
> > upgrading to newer versions, importing, or backporting a patch from
> > code which has moved to gpl3.
> 
> > I believe that one of the motivations behind the clang effort is to be
> > able to have a self hosting system completely clear of gpl3 when
> > desired (not that the clang work is not worthwhile in of itself :)
> 
> > David (Brownlee)
> 
> FreeBSD now is free of gpl3 in the base system, at least for amd64 and
> i386, though I believe there is still the option to build the system
> using gcc.

This is a highly misleading characterization. FreeBSD never imported any
GPL3, which resulted in a toolchain that is for many purposes useless in
the base system. It is now slowly coming back to the point where it can
be used.

The situation in NetBSD is effectively:
(1) GCC which has a runtime exception for the libraries that removes the
immediate problems of the GPL3 vs the earlier GPL2 + runtime exceptions.
(2) GDB which can be easily dropped from the target system.
(3) Binutils which can be easily dropped from the target system.

That was the pragmatic choice taken in NetBSD -- keep using a toolchain
where we don't have to fix all bugs ourselves, but which can be mostly
segrated for deployment.

> But llvm/clang is more advanced on FreeBSD than on NetBSD, is used for
> building the base FreeBSD system, at least on amd64 and i386.

Please don't talk about things you have no in-depth knowledge of.

Joerg