🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C0FuFu.o41@austin.ibm.com> moller@austin.ibm.com (Christian
H. L. Moller) writes:
>In article <2B4A0FD5.FD6B@tct.com>, chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>> From discussion on this newsgroup, I'm given to understand that
>> someone is working on a truly free (public domain or equivalent)
>> C compiler.  Is this impression correct?  If so, who's doing it?
>
>It's called `gcc', by the good folks at the Free Software Foundation.  You
>can get it, and tons of other stuff, by ftp from a lot of places
>(ftp.uu.net:/systems/gnu and prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu to name a couple, do
>a `dir gcc*', also take a look in ./GNUinfo).  There are also a few `gnu'
>newsgroups (e.g. gnu.announce, gnu.gcc.announce) that can give you more
>information.

No, Christian, you miss the point.  I think Chip knows very much all about 
gcc and the FSF.  GCC is NOT public domain.  It is till copyrighted, by
the FSF.  

What Chip want's  to know about is a _truly_ pd compiler.  I've seen a few
posts here (well, 2 actually I can remember, but I dont' read everything 
posted to this group), I have doubts to their dedication to the project.

Writing a compiler is a daunting project (ask the FSF!).  Writing a portable
compiler, even more so.  While someone may write a complete compiler for 
one machine, and release it into the public domain, with a statement like
"Feel free to use this, and port to other machines!", it becomes quite a 
logistic problem to try to incorporate changes into the original compiler
in a coherent manner.  And I feel it's really more than one person could
handle.

When I see posts like "my friend is working on a pd compiler," I tend to have
doubts.  If I see something like "for our graduate project, we are trying to
implement a portable compiler accross multiple machine, and it will be 
released into the public domain," then I'll tend to give it a little more
credence (after all, the slavedr^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hadvisor will probably just provide
incentive and some coordination).  It's not that I would doubt the sincerity
of an individual to attempt such a project, I just really doubt one person
could do it and remain sane (hmm.... rms....?? nahhhh  :-)

just some random ramblings,
mrc
-- 
Mike Castle .-=NEXUS=-.  Life is like a clock:  You can work constantly
  mcastle@cs.umr.edu     and be right all the time, or not work at all
S087891@UMRVMA.UMR.EDU   and be right at least twice a day.  -- mrc
    We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan.  -- Watchmen