Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 01:03:18 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed@reedmedia.net>, <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: free C compiler? (was RE: Windriver, Slackware and FreeBSD) Message-ID: <008c01c0c8a7$31cd36c0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0104190009370.17317-100000@pilchuck.reedmedia.net>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Jeremy C. Reed > >Any ideas where I can find a working free (maybe BSD-licensed) C compiler? >Preprocessor? >Assembler? >Linker? > none at all. What you might be able to do is go find an old VAX BSD distribution and attempt to port the C compiler from there to FreeBSD. It would probably make an interesting Masters thesis project for someone. But, your going to end up with a compiler that's truly archaic, non-ANSI C, and isn't going to be able to compile any modern code. Plus that, the K&R C compiler in the original BSD UNIX system can certainly be traced all the way back to the original Bell Labs UNIX and it's compiler, so any old compiler you find is probably stuffed with encumbered code anyway. By the time that any fruits of a project like that would be usable, you could have started from scratch with less effort. >I'd be glad to use a free cc to build my own projects and try to build >parts of a BSD source tree. > To come up with anything like gcc would take an enormous amount of work over years and years, I just don't think that we are going to see this anytime soon. The best hope would be if some commercial operation were to release their compiler into the public domain. But, I think that most commercial UNIX compilers trace their roots back to the original SYSV compiler. Even gcc originated from there but mainly the ideas, Stallman took pains to ensure that no actual code was carried from the old compiler into gcc. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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