Re: gcc for winders

["Dave Korn" <davek-ml at ntlworld dot com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Buck" <jbuck@racerx.synopsys.com>
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 11:11 PM

> > But... it's arguable that people "who don't feel comfortable with
building
> > code from source" are at the wrong place entirely, since that's the
whole
> > point of a compiler.  :-)
>
> Well, there's a difference in scale between a small project and a large
one.
>
> And they are likely to arrive anyway.  They hear about gcc and want to get
it,
> fire up google, go to the top gcc site, see a link called "download", and
> click it.  We need to redirect such folks more firmly to other sites.

  I'm not sure about that altogether.  Do we really just want to offer ready
made spoon fed downloads for people, or is an important part of the Gcc
site's function to try and actively garner recruits to the open source /
free software (delete according to political preference! :) movement?  Are
we not willing to more-or-less trick people into using the source, and
learning a bit about how their computer works behind the scenes in order to
allow them to take back control over their machines from the micro$ofts of
this world?

  I suppose I'm not seriously arguing that the site should be obfuscated,
but I wouldn't like to see any shift in emphasis away from the importance of
the source.  That is, after all, why we're all here.

     DaveK