🚀 go-pugleaf

Kenneth P. Turvey (kturvey@pug1.sprocketshop.com) wrote:
: For $150, why don't you just pay them.  I hadn't ever heard of the
: company before, but I'm pleased to hear that a commercial company is
: using the GPL.  Why don't you support their work financially?

Analog Devices is a huge semiconductor firm.  They specialize in things like
op-amps, A/D-D/A converters, and have a line of DSPs (to name a few).

Personally, I'll never understand why semiconductor companies charge many $$
for their basic development tools (is this even consistent with GPL?).
Isn't their goal to sell chips?  Won't more people use their cpus if tools
were free?

Of course if your tools are very buggy a company then won't have any signifi-
cant investment to keep them from switching to someone else...but even those 
with the best tools charge many $K.  (I'll never forget when TI's local rep
told me how much the compilers for the brand-new 'C80 were ~$100K.  I just
laughed...They've come way down since then of course, but are still expensive)

(Note: these comments only apply to the basic assembler, stripped-down
compiler, standard C library.  Emulators of course cost $$ since they include
hardware; and if you want someone to write an FFT for you then be prepared
to cough up $$).

BTW these are my personal opinions.  If you want OSC's opinion I'll point
you to our PR guy... ;)

-- 
Kenneth Ryan                    ryan@oscsystems.com
Principal Engineer		(301) 353-1714		M/S: E-15
Orbital Sciences Corp.          FAX:     -8679          20301 Century Blvd.
   / Fairchild Defense          FAX:     -8679          Germantown, MD 20874