[bayindirh]

I'm using Linux for 20 years, and witnessing what Microsoft is doing for more than 25. Being openly hostile towards Linux and plotting ways to lock it out of hardware platforms and tech ecosystems is enough of a motivation for me.

It's not only their stance against Linux only, but everything competing with them.

I believe hardware and software should be open and platforms shall compete openly. I don't use any vendor which openly kills this interoperability and try to corner market with underhanded tactics.

It's not limited to Microsoft, though. I use Java because there's OpenJDK, Go because there's gcc-go toolchain, etc. Similarly I don't use Rust because it's LLVM only for now.

However, this doesn't mean that I want these to disappear. I want them to compete fairly, so we can improve. I'm not a web-dev so I have no need for this frameworks, but I'd make similar choices if I enter to that arena, too.

[5e92cb50239222b]

> I use Java because there's OpenJDK

Which is mostly (~95%) developed by Oracle and is about the same in its openness and community participation as

https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/

is.

Or maybe you meant OpenJ9?

FWIW I also use Linux exclusively, develop (and host) dotnet applications on it, and have my own gripes with it (mostly with Linux still being treated as a second-tier platform which is only good for servers as far as MS is concerned — I'm not talking about the abomination that VS is — try to compare the official profiling & debugging tooling).

[bayindirh]

There's an important distinction: License. OpenJDK is GPL2.0, .NET runtime is MIT. They may be same in terms of openness, but not in freedom sense.

As a result, OpenJDK is much more sustainable in the long term, since it can't be closed down and crippled as easily.

While I am no enemy of MIT/BSD style licenses, the "freedoms" they provide to corporations are damaging to open source ecosystem in my eyes.

OpenJ9 looks like EPL licensed, and indeed interesting. It's worth a look.

I'm not writing Java with any considerable volume for some time (because, I didn't need that), hence I was just keeping that in my peripheral vision without paying much attention. However, I'm using Eclipse because it's a great IDE for my needs, and comes with OpenJ9 embedded.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, will look deeper.

[piaste]

> I believe hardware and software should be open and platforms shall compete openly. I don't use any vendor which openly kills this interoperability and try to corner market with underhanded tactics. [..] Similarly I don't use Rust because it's LLVM only for now.

I'm curious, what do you have against LLVM? I'm sure it supports fewer backends than GCC, no surprise given their relative ages, but it's still got quite a few and it's open enough that it has documented support for adding new backends.

[bayindirh]

I'm not strictly against LLVM. My objections are the license, and how companies use it against GCC/GNU.

I open everything I can, and strictly with GNU/GPLv3+. I want this code can be built and improved upon, even after I abandon it voluntarily or involuntarily. Hence I choose GPL licensed (or close as much as possible) toolchains and tools as much as possible.

For example, I use Eclipse, and include .project files in the repositories, so one can import the project as is, and continue playing, or maintaining the code. I'm improving my Eclipse knowledge to use agnostic paths, so anyone cloning the repo can directly import to Eclipse, and just click build.

I also plan to make my Eclipse and toolchain settings available to make my development environment completely reproducible.

On the case of the Rust, I'm waiting gccrs, which is arriving as an unofficial language in gcc-13. This will both provide an alternative and GPL licensed implementation of the language, and I can be sure that the code I leave behind can be built with the public version of the GCC.

Moreover, I use no compiler specific extensions, because I'm not trying to lock anyone to any toolchain. I'm just trying to make sure that the repo is buildable. I may even add a LLVM (or go-gc) test path to make sure that I don't break anything between implementations.

IOW, I have strong opinions about software freedom, and I apply them to my code, but not force people to obey them (except the license, because I need to underpin it). It's a strong stance, yet there's no insistence. I just set an example, and try to make it a very good one, to show it can be done.

[5e92cb50239222b]

I think the point was not against LLVM itself, but rather against languages for which only a single implementation is available, which is a pretty strong argument IMHO.