Earn $$$ writing free software.

[Toon Moene <toon at moene dot indiv dot nluug dot nl>]

[ I wonder if this gets through the spam filters :-) ]

OK, so now the whole world knows that LLNL, LANL, Sandia and two other 
labs are looking for, and willing to pay for a free Fortran 95 compiler.

An obscure (in the Web sense) report at

http://www.llnl.gov/asci/pathforward_trilab/OSSODA_PF_RFI_V9e.pdf

suddenly bursts onto the scene because it might mean that 
<some-free-software> might get a funding.

Let's make one thing clear from the beginning:

I'm *not* in it for the money.

[ yes, that's a play on a Zappa quote ]

I am not interested in the money, other than if they can send it 
no-strings-attached so that I could spend the rest of my life developing 
free software on a nice, Pacific, island (unmarked $100 bills, please).

However, we're talking about tax-payer's money and as a civil servant, I 
*have* strong feelings about spending that.

For one thing, I don't like government agencies spending money due to 
ill-advised (or ill-researched) needs/opportunities.

Reading the above document, it occurs to me that:

- The g95/gfortran effort is misrepresented (it is not "slowly
  progressing" and it does produce real, executable code).
- The g77 compiler is misrepresented (it is not a derivative of the f2c
  Fortran-to-C converter).
- Given these errors, it's questionable the Open64 compiler is given
  the place it deserves (this works both ways, of course).
- Given the considerations above, it's questionable the team at LLNL,
  etc. will reach a correct conclusion about which effort to support,
  *if any*.

That's why I wrote what I wrote on the fortran@gcc.gnu.org list:

http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/fortran/2003-11/msg00052.html

which started this avalanche ...

--
Toon Moene - mailto:toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl - phoneto: +31 346 214290
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
Maintainer, GNU Fortran 77: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/g77_news.html
GNU Fortran 95: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/ (under construction)