[chandlerc1024]

Hi, full disclosure, it's my team working on this at Google FWIW, and the technical lead for much of Google's contributions to LLVM.

When we asked the community if they were interested in us developing this in the open as part of LLVM, we meant as part of LLVM. We're very committed to the LLVM open source project, and think it would be great for this to be developed within that framework (technical, project, community, the whole works). I'm hopeful that the community is in fact interested.

But we also were asking -- we have some specific technical goals that we'd like to make sure we can accomplish. It really is the community's decision whether this makes sense. =]

[andrey_utkin]

Hi Chandler!

Is it just me, or the original Googler's posting on llvm-dev does not explain their motivation beyond the vague "doesn't quite address"? I guess some solid list of problems hard to resolve could help.

Also, as you say, it's a community decision now, what will be a plan if community NACKs the proposal? A BoringLibc from scratch? Commitment to contribute hard fixes to glibc and/or mail?

[chandlerc1024]

I think it's hard to predict what a community will be interested in deep-diving to understand. And I'm not sure that HN is super representative of its interests either. The email was aimed at LLVM folks, not HN.

I generally trust the LLVM community to ask for any details they need to reasonably evaluate a proposal like this, and I also trust the folks on my team to work to address those requests to the extent we can.

I don't think it makes sense to try and speculate about what option will make the most sense if LLVM says "nope". Generally, I plan to encourage the team to see if there is a good way for us to address concerns the LLVM community has while still getting the technical things we need. IMO, it would be somewhat surprising if there were no reasonable path where this could both be reasonable for the LLVM community and Google. Doesn't mean it is impossible, but having detailed and precise plans don't seem like a priority. IMO, the priority is finding a good way to work with the LLVM community here.

On a more meta level, I also think it would be good for lots of folks (HN, twitter, etc.) to be a bit less harsh in their criticism of initial posts proposing new efforts/projects. I've seen this several times recently (ranging from this to the V language stuff). I'd suggest folks maybe ask questions and give people a chance to flesh out their thoughts and provide missing context rather than hammering in feedback. In many cases, I think the feedback is actually good, but the method of delivery makes it much harder for people to learn from and respond to constructively.

Anyways, enough meta...

[majewsky]

> I've seen [harsh criticism] several times recently (ranging from this to the V language stuff).

It's probably not a good idea to put yourself on one level with a scammer.

Seriously though, any effort made by Google will of course be scrutinized much more vigorously than the same effort made by a smaller org or a single person. If I decide to build my own libc, no one will care because they probably don't need to care. But big companies like Google have the power and inertia to just shove decisions in people's faces. I think for most people here, a large part of the dayjob is spent dealin with and working around the stupid decisions of third-party hardware/software vendors.

[gorio]

There are also many example of Google doing just that to various degrees when it comes to open source projects, security research, their own products, dealing with vendors, customers or employment among other things. This of course isn't something unique to Google. What is unique however is their position.

They are probably the most powerful company when it comes computers, software and the Internet. They have the culture, means and goodwill to do a lot more damage than almost anyone else. I am sure that is at part of why people want to work for Google. Not to do damage of course, but because you can make a difference. Unfortunately making a difference for Google frequently isn't the best for rest of us.

[sverige]

Snark aside, Google's desire to own the de facto non-GPL libc is worthy of a discussion in the broader community. Your expressed desire to limit the discussion and unwillingness to directly address the issues raised by Rich Felker speaks volumes.

[jchw]

- Google doesn’t claim to want to own it, at least not anywhere that I’ve seen written. They just want to design it, for their needs.

- Nowhere do they say it should be the “defacto” libc. If anything, Clang and libc++ remain not defacto. Glibc would likely continue to be the preferred libc in my personal opinion. Nothing wrong with that.

[sverige]

My concern is that if Google's libc becomes part of the LLVM package, it will push out Clang and musl and any others. It should be a separate package like the others.

[jchw]

I assume you mean glibc instead of Clang here.

Well, I think personally making it part of LLVM works to the community’s advantage. If Google is the sole owner and maintainer, external forces will have less impact, much to the detriment of the library quality (imo.) As a part of LLVM, there are many huge players with interest in improving the library and many maintainers externally.

Google and other big companies already contribute to LLVM, so I don’t think the status quo is changing at all.

[sverige]

>And I'm not sure that HN is super representative of its interests either. The email was aimed at LLVM folks, not HN.

>On a more meta level, I also think it would be good for lots of folks (HN, twitter, etc.) to be a bit less harsh in their criticism of initial posts proposing new efforts/projects.

I'm sure it's super annoying when folks in the larger community with vested interests in the continuing success of projects like LLVM start noticing harsh criticism coming from credible experts like Rich Felker. =]

And then post it to HN or tweet it out to others so the concern spreads. =]

But all feedback is good feedback, right? And anyways, I'm sure the folks at LLVM will let Google have their way in the end because there's no other foreseeable outcome of this discussion, is there? At least, none worth discussing. =]

[jchw]

Rich Felker was being civil. You are not being civil. In the spirit of civility and honestly just adhering to Hacker News community guidelines, please reconsider your tone. I believe this kind of behavior is damaging to open source, and mocking the person you are replying to reflects pretty poorly on yourself.

[sverige]

I agree that I was out of line, which is why I posted a more civil reply (I hope) afterwards, since at that point I wasn't able to delete it.