Re: SGI releases IA64 C C++ and F90 compiler under GPL

[Mike Stump <mrs at windriver dot com>]

> Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 20:02:23 -0600 (MDT)
> From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> To: toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl

>     There are more people asking me to try to convince SGI to assign
>     copyright to the FSF.

> I know very little about what SGI has released.  Does it have any
> connection with GCC, or is it a totally independent compiler?

My take on it is, that it was a totally different compiler, with lots
of neat whiz bangs in it, that SGI feels their customers expect (to
get performance), included front ends and the backend.  What they did
was to graft their backend onto the gcc frontends, replacing the GNU
backend, and vending that as their compiler.  Now, I suspect for
performance reasons, or in order to play nicely with us, they just
decided to GPL their code, and release them together.

With this, they get the performance their customers want, the language
their customers want, and the ABI (in the case of C++) that their
customers want.

Longer term, we can mine the good bits from their compiler (if they
decide to allow it), or if it is really that much better, and we want
to do it, we could swap backends and go the other direction.  haifa is
an existence proof that this isn't totally crazy.

Anyway, the time frame for this would be 1-3 years I suspect, minimum.

Now, disclaimer, I've not looked at what they've done, and my
information might be old and out of date.