>> Nonsense. GCC may be the best free C compiler out there, but it's
>> certainly not the only one and it certainly wasn't the only one in
>> 1991. If GCC wasn't around, one of the other free compilers would
>> have been suitable for the job,
>I've been actively using free software for more than a dozen years
>(since gcc 1.18).
It's getting close to 30 for me; of course, I started using
computers when source was pretty universally available, so
the lines weren't quite so firmly drawn.
>I know of no other full, free compiler which runs on a variety of popular
>processors (MIPS, Sparc, NSxxx, i386, M68xxx, some more).
All Linux needed was a compiler that worked on the ia32 architecture,
since that's the architecture that it was originally written on.
If gcc wasn't around, who knows what would have happened with, oh,
Sozobon C (which was written in 88? 89?), or any of the other C or
C-like compilers that were floating around for free.
____
david parsons \bi/ It's a moot point, because RMS seems to be saying now
\/ that using glibc gives permission to steal the name.
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