Re: Problems with pkgsrc on NetBSD-5.2

> 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.

Last GCC version not on GPL 3 is 4.2.1, rather outdated and lacking capabilities of newer versions.

But GCC is still available in FreeBSD ports and is necessary for compiling some packages.

I see NetBSD trying to build the system with llvm/clang:
http://releng.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/builds.cgi

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.

Now FreeBSD-current is using the prerelease llvm-5.0.

Tom