Re: macOS/GCC support policy

[Richard Stallman]

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  > Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2019 12:18:02 +0100
  > From: Alan Third <address@hidden>
  > To: Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden>
  > Subject: Re: macOS/GCC support policy
  > Message-ID: <address@hidden>
  > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
  > Content-Disposition: inline
  > In-Reply-To: <address@hidden>
  > Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden

  > On Sat, Aug 03, 2019 at 02:10:45PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
  > > > Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2019 12:02:56 +0100
  > > > From: Alan Third <address@hidden>
  > > > Cc: Philipp Stephani <address@hidden>, address@hidden,
  > > >         address@hidden
  > > > 
  > > > On Fri, Aug 02, 2019 at 06:05:20PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
  > > > > 
  > > > > Why does Emacs need AppKit/AppKit.h?  If this is for some important
  > > > > functionality, and if we cannot find a compatible replacement, I guess
  > > > > the conclusion is that we cannot build Emacs on macOS with GCC due to
  > > > > the Apple system headers.
  > > > 
  > > > Appkit is, basically, the NextStep GUI toolkit, so we need it.
  > > 
  > > So basically, this means GCC cannot be currently used to compile any
  > > non-trivial NS GUI application, is that right?

  > Yes. As Philippe demonstrated GCC errors when it sees the header
  > files.

  > > Is there any ETA on GCC support for the current NS GUI?  Is anyone
  > > working on that, to the best of your knowledge?

  > As far as I’m aware nobody is working on it. Features like blocks have
  > been part of Apple’s Objective C spec for at least a decade now and I
  > don’t believe there has been any attempt to update GCC.

The basic purpose of every GNU package is to add to what the GNU
system can do.  Making a GNU program run on some other system is not a
central goal, but we encourage people to implement that if they wish.

It would be beneficial to make GCC support MacOS if it would lead
to more adoption of GCC.  Otherwise, we don't especially care.

If extensions to Objective C make that language better, it would be
good to implement them.  GNUtep doesn't use them now, but maybe it
would use them if they were available.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)