It’s just that Linux used GCC extensions and no one was interested in doing the work necessary to have it compile on a non-GCC compiler.
But Linux didn’t go out of its way to be incompatible with ZFS out of ideology. Sun intentionally picked a license which would not be compatible. That’s why ZFS lives outside of the main tree.
The ideology that’s driving the Linux kernel development: “shared source code leads to better code, user land should never be broken” are very different from the one that led to GCC gimping itself. Generally speaking the kernel community is very technically oriented and doesn’t go out of its way to prevent things for social reasons.
EXPORT_GPL_ONLY
The kernel does care about enforcing the GPL explicitly on some of the interface it presents to modules to ensure the openness of the code which is indeed a form of statement in favour of open code.
I don’t think the situation was the same regarding compiling only with GCC - after all clang is free software - and I think the heart of my argument still hold: the kernel community makes decisions mostly for reason related to the kernel - even there they just want to force code to be mainlined - rather than for the movement like the FSS.
that's total BS
are you telling me that Alan Cox had no involvement in the Free Software?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cox_(computer_programmer)
> It’s just that Linux used GCC extensions and no one was interested in doing the work necessary to have it compile on a non-GCC compiler.
the GCC extensions were essential to enforce the GCC supremacy because no other non-free compiler could implement them
I don’t see how your statement contradicts or is even linked to mine.
The kernel community as a whole very much has little interest into the philosophical arguments surrounding open source. Apart from being convinced that sharing code is the best way to develop a kernel they have next to no active involvement in the whole charade.
See for exemple keeping GPL v2, not opposing TIVOisation, disapproving on technical merits but allowing proprietary drivers and binary blobs.
> the GCC extensions were essential to enforce the GCC supremacy because no other non-free compiler could implement them
Linux uses GCC extensions because they are handy and GCC was the compiler everyone used to compile C projects for a long time. It’s not intentionally done to promote GCC on ideological ground, something pretty much no one cares about in the kernel community.
because they didn't have to.
someone already established that it was the foundation, people like Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Maddog Hall and many (not too many, actually) others.
The "community" for the longest time has been a bunch of people
"is a small and well-defined group: Linus, Maddog Hall, Alan Cox, and somewhere between 6 and 12 others (varying at times)." (Steven Suson, 1999)
"Watch the linux-kernel mailing list. The "Inner Circle" becomes very obvious. People go in and out of the Circle, so a list probably isn't possible [...] I would say it includes may be 2 dozen people." (Eric Princen, 1999)
> It’s not intentionally done to promote GCC on ideological ground, something pretty much no one cares about in the kernel community.
again: you're talking at the present, I am talking about the first two decades
you may have forgotten about it, I did not.
Who said anything about zealots?
please, stop putting words in someone else's mouth.
Linus was a big supporter of free software and the fact that the Linux kernel was free software is what compelled many developers to donate their work for free
They didn't do it to improve NT Kernel or Solaris kernel or... you know it.
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Software is like sex: it's better when it's free.
-- Linus Torvalds