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Open Watcom Effort Makes First Public Release
epowers writes: "It's been a long time since /. ran this story, but a few days ago the Open Watcom Project made it's first public release. It's only a binary patch targeted at 11.0a/b owners, but it's still an important roadmark on the way to the planned full open source release of both the Watcom C/C++ and Fortran compilers. Most programmers, particularly game programmers, should remember the amount of prestige id software's DOOM generated for the Watcom compiler and the sudden proliferation of 32-bit DOS games with the tell-tale "DOS/4GW" startup banner. The download is available for free, but Open Watcom requests a $1-$50 donation to help support the development effort required to remove code Sybase doesn't own and to prepare the open source release."
This OpenWatcom project has existed for over a year, claiming they will make a open source release.
Yet they still haven't released a single line of source. They haven't even decided on a license. All they did is release a binary patch.
Why don't they just rip out the stuff they can't distribute, and publish the incomplete source? At the very least, it would be a proof of their intentions.
As it stands, this thing is just a hoax.