From: AndrewJ Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: Watcom C++ opened? Message-ID: References: <200008222126 DOT RAA23165 AT envy DOT delorie DOT com> <200008241959 DOT PAA19054 AT envy DOT delorie DOT com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/32.534 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 49 Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 12:26:49 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.42.120.18 X-Complaints-To: abuse AT home DOT net X-Trace: news2.rdc1.on.home.com 967206409 24.42.120.18 (Fri, 25 Aug 2000 05:26:49 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 05:26:49 PDT Organization: Excite AT Home - The Leader in Broadband To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com >The last statistics I heard was that Cygnus got the contracts for >about 75% of all new microprocessors. Granted, there aren't that many >microprocessor vendors, but the same compiler ends up in Linux, and >the GNU tools themselves have been very popular over the last 10-20 >years or so. You can buy Red Hat (and others) Linux and Cygnus GNUPro >in the local mall - I'm not sure how much more "mass" the market would >need to be to qualify. I'm not going to argue with that. But to me, mass market means wide spread, popular and well known. During the early 90's, Watcom was the compiler that just about everyone (who was a programmer) know about. I knew about Watcom all the way back in '92 or so, since we used it on the QNX machines in high school. I didn't know about GNU and the FSF until I got Linux in 1997, and DJGPP until about 1998 (when I bought the first Dr. Dobbs alternative languages CD). The other GNU software I learned about after finding out about DJGPP (the CD distribution was lacking some bits). Of course, that's just my timeline of when I learned about the respective products. >I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm sticking to my statement. I >*still* have to remind our *own* marketing people (Cygnus) about the >difference between commercial and proprietary. I've long since >learned not to bother if it's someone else's company. I've also >learned that people who don't understand the difference usually don't >care about the difference, so trying to teach them is a wasted effort. I should retract my comment. In hindsight, I was being rather childish, since I am well aware that the non-developers of Watcom don't seem to be very bright people. This is just the sort of mistake I should have expected of them. Mr. Delorie, I'm sorry. >Of course, my main point was to avoid a long thread about Watcom on a >forum where Watcom is off-topic. Fair enough. I will not continue the thread after this one. >GNUPro isn't "mine". I'm just pointing out that you should take >marketing statements with a great deal of cynicism, even when they're >your own company. If you think it's childish to examine the facts and >make an informed decision, oh well. I knew that. That was just the "feeling" I got from your statement. On the other hand, there've been discussions here before about the GNU's bloated code size. (Eli mentioned something about doing it so as not to risk copyright infringements). But, this is off topic for the group, and I've probably made a bit of a fool of myself. Hey, at least I apologized. :) Andrew Jones