Re: Using of parse tree externally

[dewar at gnat dot com (Robert Dewar)]

<<<<1') What prevents a company to take gcc as it exists now, create a
    patch that dumps a representation of the tree, distribute this
    freely and then design its own compiler around the output of the
    "their" gcc distribution ??
>>


This might be a copyright violation. There is no clear case law one wa
or the other in my opinion, there are conflicting district cases that
could be used to argue either position. The mere possibility that this
would be a copyright violation might well prevent the above action.

<<3) It seems to me that fearing competition from companies
   making specialized back-ends is a bad question. gcc is
   certainly the most used compiler (after VC++) because it's
   free, open and behaves the same way everywhere. Remember, not so
   long ago there was a derived compiler pgcc (maybe it still exists,
   I have not checked it for months) that was free, tuned for x86 and
   I'm not quite sure it ever really hurted gcc. On the contrary, it
   seems it has pushed gcc's development towards a more open process
   which is good.
>>

Well it is not so much fear, as a hope that the pressure will cause
people to GPL such specialized back-ends. I know of two such cases.
TLD put the backend of their compiler under the GPL to go together with
the GNAT front end, and SGI put their advanced optimizing backend under
the GPL to go with the g++ and gnu C frontends.

THat's surely a desirable result :-)