From: pen@lysator.liu.se (Peter Eriksson)
Subject: Re: GCC, Solaris 2.0, Cygnus Support, and a lesson in corporate ethics
Organization: Lysator Academic Computer Club, Linkoping University, Sweden
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 12:02:46 GMT

aburt@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu (Andrew Burt) writes:

>(c)  Cygnus might (*might*) not have known the port was done when
>they made the offer, and *might* genuinely have thought it would take
>considerable effort to do.  If so, they *might* want to consider
>refunding some of the revenue since in this scenario the port turned
>out much simpler than planned.  Or if not refund, then donate it to FSF.
>Not the whole thing, sicne the year of support is worth 2/3 whatever the full
>price is, but some sizable fraction of the "cost of porting" seems to
>have been collected for less work than planned/suggested.  I can't imagine
>the actual cost of porting to be in the $300k range, even if the work
>hadn't been done a priori.  As a consultant myself, with (I believe) a
>considerable amount of skill and demand, I'd be embarrassed to earn that
>much for this small a task.

This is what <gnu@cygnus.com> said in one of the original postings, when
they asked for people to send in money, about what they would do for the
money they got:

> Newsgroups: gnu.gcc.help,gnu.gcc.announce,gnu.announce,gnu.gdb.bug
> Subject: You can help to put the GNU compiler into Solaris 2.0
> Message-ID: <9203040959.AA26369@cygnus.com>
> Date: 4 Mar 92 09:59:11 GMT
>
>...
>
> Cygnus Support's response is to port the GNU C compiler and tools to
> Solaris 2.0.  The result will be a full set of development tools--ANSI
> and traditional C compiler, assembler, linker, debugger, and binary
> utilities--freely available to everyone under the GNU General Public
> License.  We'll release the tools at the same time as Solaris 2.0.

Note that they are not just talking about GCC here, but a complete
developement environment.

> Who'll pay for it?
>
> We are raising a total of $300k for this project.  We are looking for
> 150 sites that will each send in $2000--the current price of ``Sun C''.
> These funds will pay for the development work, distribution, support
> from Cygnus for the sites that chip in, and a significant donation to
> the Free Software Foundation.
>
>...
>
> If I help, what do I get?
>
> Each site sending $2000 will get a copy of the compiler directly from
> Cygnus, and will also get its name engraved in bits on the CDware
> mass-distribution disk (see below).  The software will be ready to run:
> integrated, configured, compiled, and easy to install, with printed
> documentation.  It can be used to compile either ANSI or traditional C
> code for the SPARC.

Ok, it this part of the message is sounds like they are just talking
about GCC. However, the other parts of the posting makes it pretty clear
that this isn't so.

> The $2000 price includes one year's software support from Cygnus to a
> group of up to five people at your site, starting when we deliver the
> software to you.  If we meet our goal of $300,000, we will give
> $75,000 to the Free Software Foundation.  Each contribution to this
> project will also support the ongoing development work of the
> Foundation: projects such as the Mach-based Unix OS emulator, the C
> interpreter, continuing GCC improvements, and advanced versions of Emacs.
>
>...
>
> How much work is it?
> 
> We have part of the work already done.  The major change is that
> Solaris 2.0 uses the ELF file format and ``stabs'' debugging records,
> unlike both traditional ``a.out'' files and SVR4 ELF-with-``dwarf''
> files. The latest GDB, and parts of the new binutils, can already read
> the ELF format on some machines.  We need to improve the Binary File
> Descriptor library so it can write ELF files, significantly improve
> the new GNU LD to handle shared libraries, and make an ELF version of
> the GNU Assembler.  We need to support stabs-in-ELF in GCC2, GAS, and
> GDB.  And of course, we have to port each tool to run smoothly on a
> new operating system, update the documentation, and write the scripts
> to make it easy to install.

To me atleast this sounds like they aren't implying that they are going
to spend their most time on porting GCC to Solaris.

Some other pieces of that message that may be of interrest:

> Need real support?
>
> People who take advantage of this limited-time offer will get a year's
> support for a group of 5 people from Cygnus, for $2000.  People who
> receive the CDware disk with their workstation, or get the software
> from the net, can buy the same support later for $3000.  Or they can
> just use it, depending on themselves and the net for support.  Larger
> sites can pay more for more support.  People who sign up early get the
> best deal, in return for believing in us and in the power of free
> software to improve the world.
>
> What about C++?
> 
> We'll offer C++, and compilers for Solaris 2.0 on the 386, at a later
> date.

I'f you want the whole message, just send me a note and I'll mail it to
you.

/Peter
--
Peter Eriksson                                              pen@lysator.liu.se
Lysator Academic Computer Society                 ...!uunet!lysator.liu.se!pen
University of Linkoping, Sweden                           I'm bored. Flame me.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.misc