graham@relay.eu.net (Graham Underwood) (05/03/90)
>In article <7196@brazos.Rice.edu>, aten@afcsa.af.mil (Bill Aten) writes: >Some quotes and questions regarding Sun's new C compiler. [...] We do all our compilations on a server - saves a lot of I/O from diskless workstations. Does this mean we only need to buy one copy ?
balen@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk (Henry Balen) (05/05/90)
aten@afcsa.af.mil (Bill Aten) wrote: >Sun recently announced the release of Sun C 1.0 -- an unbundled C compiler >which "will be the basis for all future C compiler performance >improvements and feature enhancements". Is this really going to be the only C compiler supported by Sun? What will happen to the C compiler that comes with the system? What will happen in the future... (Will Sun unbundle the linker?) Will they be taking the C libraries off the system? (I was under the impression that C and it's libraries were closely interwined with the UNIX system!) On a more serious note, what happens to support for the C compiler that is bundled in. Will Sun fix any bugs that a customer has come across? I was under the impression that our maintenance contracts are for all the software bundled into the system. From the rest of the article it appears that the C compiler will be expensive for any serious development team (see Bill Aten's calculation for the compiler on a Server with ten users!). This leads on to other sources of C compilers. If you are developing Sparc software I suppose you could always get a Solbourne -- they bundle in a C compiler and a C++ translator! (and there is always GNU) I am not familiar with some of the other compilers on the market, but I am sure that as the Sparc gets more popular and `shrink wrap' software comes along then cheap C compilers will also be available. Henry Balen <balen@camscan.co.uk> Camscan, Saxon Way, Bar Hill, Cambridge CB3 8SL, UK.
aten@samt19.afcsa.af.mil (Bill Aten) (05/07/90)
In article <7384@brazos.Rice.edu> advsys!graham@relay.eu.net (Graham Underwood) writes: >>In article <7196@brazos.Rice.edu>, aten@afcsa.af.mil (Bill Aten) writes: >>Some quotes and questions regarding Sun's new C compiler. [...] > >We do all our compilations on a server - saves a lot of I/O from diskless >workstations. Does this mean we only need to buy one copy ? Not the way I read the message. Again quoting note #4: "4. An RTU license is required per user per workstation." So if you have ten workstations with 2 users each, or one server with 20 users, you still need 20 RTU license's (assuming, of course, that the requirement exists for 20 users to all be compiling code at the same time). _____________________________________________________________________________ Bill Aten | UUCP: ...!sun!sundc!samt19!aten Commercial: (202) 697-2183 | Autovon: 227-2183 | Internet: aten@afcsa.af.mil _____________________________________________________________________________
jas@proteon.com (John A. Shriver) (05/09/90)
I don't think trying to make money off us is what Sun had in mind with unbundling the C compiler. They will (of course) continue to include one, how else could you build a kernel? I think the reason that was stated for unbundling the C compiler was to provide a more recent and competitive compiler. The compiler they ship with the system is frozen a LONG time before release. This is done so that they can have trust in the C compiler they are using to compile the system and utilities with. This is so the kernel developers can focus on their own bugs, not the bugs in the compiler. (I have friends who worked at computer companies where you compiled the kernel with the "C compiler of the week". It was total chaos, they were always sidetracked on compiler bugs.) This is why the C compiler that comes with SunOS is so "stodgy". It is on a very long release cycle -- the release cycle of the kernel. Selling a separate compiler that does not have to compile the kernel and utilities frees Sun from this constraint. I suspect they require you to use the stock compiler to compile kernel files (drivers, etc.).