What do you think would happen to FreeBSD if GCC vanished tomorrow? Hint: It would probably suddenly finish incorporating some other, more freely licensed, compiler into its base system.
The question is not what would happen tomorrow...the question is what would have happened has RMS never existed. I think there's a pretty compelling case to be made that FreeBSD would have never happened; or at least, it would be a very different beastie.
I don't agree with RMS on all things, but he was absolutely instrumental in making our free software world what it is today, and just because you have differing beliefs about what a "free" license really is doesn't mean you should discount what he did for your favorite OS.
The question is not what would happen tomorrow...the question is what would have happened has RMS never existed.
My hope is that if RMS hadn't existed, somebody who wasn't a creepy, bearded hippy would have been the spokesperson for free software.. Hopefully somebody more balanced who didn't work himself into a tizzy over whether to call it "GNU/Linux or Linux" ..
The creepy, bearded, unbalanced hippy is what you see when you judge Stallman with a glance. His words, on the other hand, are unusually balanced and reasonable. In his essays and conferences, he wields them with extreme care, showing he fully understand their power.
Hence his insistence over GNU/Linux. It boils down to being aware of the origins of the system you are using: how it came into existence, and why. The answer, of course lies in the mouth of the original author. In the case of GNU/Linux, the name of the system directly influences which guru we are going to listen to (Linus or Richard). This is very important, because the two men have very different political opinions.
Plus, as far as I know, GNU is bigger than Linux, in probably everything. Especially at the beginning of Linux. So the legitimate name of the entire system may well be "GNU". Unfortunately, the GNU system became popular largely thanks to the Linux kernel, and people started to use the wrong name for the entire system. Really, "GNU/Linux" is a reasonable compromise.
One doesn't even have to agree to use the term "GNU/Linux", in order to have some respect for the man who made a huge impact on a community and culture we all benefit from. We owe him a great deal of respect. That doesn't mean we have to use the exact same language he uses. I don't call Linux "GNU/Linux", for example, but I would never hurl insults at the man who made so much of this possible. Humans have a strong sense of "other" and since RMS has decided to be so other-ly from mainstream society, he gets a lot of flack. That judging is a failing of the people doing the judging; weak egos attack others to try to make themselves feel better. RMS is following his beliefs, completely and without reservation, which is something few of us have the guts or gumption to do. I respect him for that, even while disagreeing with him on a few things (like the name GNU/Linux).
The counter argument to that is that nowadays on my desktop based on the Linux kernel I use a lot of software that are not GNU projects. Sure they may not be as fundemental as say the coreutils - but they are just as important to having a useable modern operating system.
And the last time I looked, it was more of "Clang not being complete" then anything else to hold up DragonFly BSD from compiling. Not sure about the state of OpenBSD or NetBSD with Clang, though.
On OpenBSD: there have been quite a few "Fix <simple bug>. Found by Clang static analyzer" commits. I believe that everything builds with Clang, but I'm not sure.
What do you think would happen to FreeBSD if GCC vanished tomorrow? Hint: It would probably suddenly finish incorporating some other, more freely licensed, compiler into its base system.