19 Jun
1999
19 Jun
'99
5:53 a.m.
On Jun 18, 20:22, Allison J Parent wrote:
<But does freeware/shareware count? The original
point was that the
<manufacturers don't provide their tools for free as part of the OS; of
<course you can add on any amount of 3rd party free software to virtually
<any OS.
However the shareware/freeware counting part I agree
it's questionable
but often there are better out there than from the OS oem.
Hmm... sometimes. The Sun C compiler was dropped because it wasn't up to
scratch; gcc outperformed it easily. However, the reverse is true for
SGI's C compiler for IRIX, which easily outperforms gcc, and for which
there are a whole range of development options.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
19 Jun
19 Jun
2:21 p.m.
At 10:53 AM 6/19/99 +0000, Pete wrote:
Hmm... sometimes. The Sun C compiler was dropped
because it wasn't up to
scratch; gcc outperformed it easily.
Hmm, I've stayed out of this conversation for now, but Pete is mistaken. I
participate (as much as anyone could) in the decision to drop the C
compiler from SunOS as part of the "BWOS" (acronym for Big Wad Of Stuff). I
argued to keep it, marketing argued to drop it, the argument went like this:
Engineering: Hey, its not the best C compiler but at least you can
start programming right out of the box.
Marketing: If we don't bundle the C compiler we can sell Sun's C
compiler tools.
Scott McNealy: Yeah, I want three divisions, the hardware guys, the
os guys, and the products guys. This would help the
products guys.
Basically you could either view it as a competition inspiring move or a
price increase in the base system (since the C compiler was now extra cost)
It did raise quite a bit of money for Sun but GCC pretty much wiped out the
marginal dollars and the people who buy it now are corporate types and the
hackers have pretty much abandoned the platform.
--Chuck
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cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com -
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