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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."
If you bothered to check the download page, you would see that you have the _option_ to donate. I am downloading it right now without having to donate. They just request that you do. No big deal.
They say (on the webpage) that a version is planned for Linux. Do we really need another C/C++ compiler for linux? We'd just end up with the trouble we had on DOS with people writing silly compiler dependent code and everything a big mess.
I wonder if this will be released under a GPL license? If so, when this puppy gets into the pulic domain, there will be anything worth merging into gcc, or vice versa? Or whether the two compilers themselves will ultimately be merged into one product?
My rights don't need management.
More compilers means more techniques applied and evaluated, benefits from compare & contrast, ability to more easily identify errors specific to a compiler and not code, and possibly more generic code in a more diverse environment.\
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
How about they actually prove they're open source (by, say, releasing something under license) before soliciting donations?
I wish EVERY substantial Free/Open software project had a donation page pop up before download. There are several programs that I use regularly for which I would donate when downloading or upgrading.
;-)
In fact, Free/Open software is much more valuable to me than the alternatives.
So in other words, I will only pay for Free software!
(Too bad they use Amazon for their donations, for those of us boycotting them.)
Yeah, it is amazing how Win2K can keep on functioning even when it is simultaneously infected with Code Red, Sadmind, and Nimda! The data rates produced by virus-generated GET requests are most impressive, and only exceeded by the rate at which IIS with ASP leaks memory. Microsoft and its "professional full fledged development team" have truly reached a pinnacle of performance and stability!
Not a troll. 32-bit flat memory, etc. under DOS was cool in the early 90s, but really how viable is it in this day and age?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
From the FRONT PAGE !!!
"When the Open Watcom 1.0 release is complete, the team will be open for general admission from anyone. The Open Watcom team is closed for the initial part of the project due to NCA restrictions with Sybase. If you have any further questions, please visit our FAQ section first. "
From the FAQ
" Is everything that was on the Watcom CD available for free download?
No. The commercial versions of the Watcom C/C++ and Fortran compilers contained licensed copies of the Windows SDK, Microsoft Foundation Classes, OS/2 Toolkit and other commercial tools. Due to licensing issues, those components cannot be made freely available. Hence in order to utilise the 11.0c binary patch release, you will need an official copy of the 11.0, 11.0a or 11.0b installation CD. "
Read the FAQ first please
The release of the path itself shows that the project is under development and it is not dead. However the project needs to solve its legal issues which WILL take time.
i am not a developer nor have any contacts or relationships or sex with sybase or scitechsoft.
Thank you!
Who says they ever will be solved? The whole OpenWatcom project can just disappear one morning because legal issues. Until source has been released I consider the project vaporware.
I looked a little in their BugZilla system, and saw that the DOS/4GW extender is one of those 'legal issues'. But why do they have to wait for permission for DOS/4GW to release the rest of the system? They can just strip out the utilities, libraries and what else they can't distribute. The result might not even compile, but that's not important. The important thing is that there's source. Maybe somebody can write replacements for the parts with 'legal issues'. Maybe we'll have to wait until they can sort it out. But in the meantime, the rest of the system is available, and will be available forever.
Really cool that they are requesting donations. I think it is important for people to realize that Free Software (as in liberty) isn't always free (as in money).
I think that if developers would use systems like paypal more we would see in increase in free software!
Kevin
TenDRA (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~patrykz/TenDRA/) also exists. The only thing I know about it is that it is included in Debian Woody. If anobody knows more, please reply :)
... could someone please provide a brief history of what the watcom compiler is or does differently than other compilers, and why it's suited to making DOOM-type games where other compilers aren't?
The OpenWATCOM site wasn't terribly informative. Apparently, this is a big deal since it made Slashdot, but I guess I don't see the significance. Thanks!
lcc is great for learning about compiler design (that's why it was created), but it doesn't optimize very well
Then why does the Quake mod community prefer lcc to gcc?
Also, the since it's licensed under the restrictive GPL license, any programs it compiles contain GPL-licensed code
Not true. According to the GPL FAQ, a GNU General Public License on a compiler infects compiled code only if the compiler copies part of itself (or any other GPL code) into the output. Thus, code compiled with GCC doesn't fall under the GPL unless it #includes a GPL'd header file or links against a GPL'd library. Most most programs under GNU/Linux link against GNU libc licensed under Lesser GPL, which simply means link dynamically or provide the .o files.
You're probably thinking of Cygwin, whose default settings link all code to a GPL library, but Cygwin can also use the MinGW runtime that links only to libraries included with the Windows operating system.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's about respect to those who read your comments. Ungrounded jokes may seem less offensive than obvious trolls, but not in the context of slashdot, where trolls are normally ignored, while the jokes like yours are not.
The good old Borland C only allowed 16 bits segments. It was really lousy.
There was some hacks to avoid this. I wrote some assembly code to enable the flat mode (only one big linear page up to 2 Gb), and Borland C finally could access 32-bits segments. But the page was still 16-bits by default, so all 32-bits operations had to be prefixed.
I wrote some games and demos with this, but Borland's produced code was very bad. On a version of Borland C, while(1) was compiled as mov ax,1 then test ax, compare with zero and jump if 1 != 0. Awesome.
It's why I tried Watcom. Watcom's code was better. Moreover it had specific optimizations for 486 and Pentium-class processors. And with DOS4GW, it was easy to access 32 bits pages. However :
So Watcom was an excellent compiler, but it was really, really buggy. I always had to review the assembly code by hand. But I liked the fact that "char" was unsigned by default.
Then, I tried DJGPP. DJGPP is a port of GCC to DOS platforms. It cames with a free DOS4GW-like called PMode.
The resulting code wasn't that bad. For floating-point arithmetic, GCC produced slower code than Watcom (can't remember why, maybe GCC didn't use the arithmetic coprocessor). But it didn't matter, demos always use fixed-point anyway.
GCC didn't produce buggy code like Watcom. And the code was...logical. Have a look at Ping for instance. It's a smooth pong-like game with carebears, bonuses, funny sounds, etc. I wrote that game with DJGPP, but if you look at the source code, you'll see that it looks a lot a assembly code. It's designed in a way that the compiler can translate one line of C in one line of assembler, and everything is pre-optimized. GCC respected this. I tried to recompile important parts of the code (sprite routines) with Watcom. The result was illogical. It tried to reorder some stuff, but this only gave slower code.
The first releases of PMode were buggy, too. They worked very bad with Qemm. But then, it got better and finally was an excellent drop-in replacement for DOS4GW. But once and again, allocating a big page was faster than multiple pages.
Why Watcom was cool : fast compiler (gcc was sooo sllooowww to compile), good optimizations for floating-point operations.
Why DJGPP was better : free, comes with emulation of many Unix system calls, gives optimized code if the source code is already optimized. And GNU-assembler syntax is way better than TASM-like syntax.
{{.sig}}
You can find the history of it here. Wow, reading that you realize how cool things are thanks to the FSF.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Since I am not a kernel
>>>>>>>>
Hopefully not! Oh, you mean kernel developer, don't you?
The Linux kernel is really not geared to be portable between compilers. It uses a lot of GCC extensions that other compilers just don't have.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
If you're interested in DOS and Windows development, you can also try the free (as in beer) Digital Mars compiler.
If memory serves, WatFor came from the University of Waterloo (Canada, not Belgium). The people who wrote it later went private and formed Watcom. Early 70s, I think.
You youngins don't know how good you have it!
How does the Portland Group compilers fare in the current compiler market?
-Paul Komarek
Syndicate Wars had one of the coolest openings ever made
Even cooler than Zero Wing?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Have a look at Ping [claranet.fr] for instance. It's a smooth pong-like game with carebears, bonuses, funny sounds, etc
IE/Windows users might want to avoid clicking this link. It contains a script that deletes an email from your inbox. It won't effect you if your machine is secure, but there's better ways of finding that out...
Fort older code, "install GCC" simply mean "don't use the braindamaged pre-ANSI C compiler bundled with the system."