Lack of open source shown as negative part of D on Dr. Dobbs

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 09/05/12 13:29, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> On Wednesday, 9 May 2012 at 10:43:22 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
>> DMD's backend isn't open source.
>
> I know that, but DMD is only the reference compiler.

... only!

> While this is an unfortunate situation, there are other D compilers available,
> which are fully open source.
>
> The most important parts of D are the libraries and the compiler frontend, and
> those are open source.

One way round the situation might be to try and coordinate releases of DMD, GDC 
and LDC[1] so that they are feature-equivalent and have passed the same set of 
tests, with official announcements giving equal weight and endorsement to these 
compilers.

Doing this would ensure that at any given time there is available at least 1 
fully open-source compiler implementing the reference standard and blessed as 
"official" by the project.

It's probably not a short term priority, but could be a useful longer-term 
policy to adopt, especially of the "not open source" claims start to be 
increasingly problematic.

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[1] I'm not sure of the status of LDC regarding D2 -- I have the impression that 
GDC is further ahead and has developed better procedures for integrating updates 
to the D frontend ... ?