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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!netnews.upenn.edu!news.misty.com!news-xfer.netaxs.com!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!netcom.net.uk!peer.news.u-net.net!yama.mcc.ac.uk!cs.man.ac.uk!usenet From: f e l l o w s d @ c s . m a n . a c . u k Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: GPL Date: 18 Feb 1997 15:38:12 GMT Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K. Lines: 28 Message-ID: <5ecid4$nde@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <5df12n$ckb@kadri.ut.ee> <5dn154$lgg@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> <5e1mr6$868@milkwort.bri.st.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: r8h.cs.man.ac.uk NNTP-Posting-User: 8028 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:159455 comp.os.linux.networking:68962 comp.os.linux.advocacy:84600 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2545 comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy:53497 comp.os.os2.advocacy:268385 In article <5e1mr6$868@milkwort.bri.st.com>, David Shepherd <des@bristol.st.com> wrote: > Donal K. Fellows <fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk> wrote: >> I still want to know why any company would be bothering to make >> significant modifications to GCC anyway, seeing as they could leave it >> alone and concentrate on the rest of the project, so getting it to >> market sooner... > > A chip can get "to market" as early as it likes but nowadays it will > get no further unless its got a decent software toolset to support it. Sure, but a compiler is only one part of the toolset, and the way GCC is built means that it isn't usually necessary to modify it to take account of a new processor (unless it is _very_ wierd). This I know from experience (in particular, I've seen the ARM toolkit, and the compiler is only a small part of that) Bundling GCC with a processor simulator does not force the simulator to be released under the GPL! Porting GCC to a new target architecture is probably only a few man-months of work, whereas the design of the architecture and teh rest of the toolkit is a _lot_ more... Donal. -- Donal K. Fellows http://r8h.cs.man.ac.uk:8000/ (SAY NO TO COMMERCIAL SPAMS!) (work) fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk Dept. Comp. Sci, Univ. Manchester, U.K. | donal@ugglan.demon.co.uk 6,Randall Place, Heaton, Bradford, U.K. (home) +-> ++44-161-275-6137 Send correspondence to my office ++44-1274-401017 <-+