From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 27 09:30:32 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6848616A401 for ; Tue, 27 Feb 2007 09:30:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from petrus4@tpg.com.au) Received: from mail8.tpgi.com.au (smtp8.tpgi.com.au [220.244.226.118]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E4C2613C4AA for ; Tue, 27 Feb 2007 09:30:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from petrus4@tpg.com.au) X-TPG-Antivirus: Passed Received: from owner704ff21d8 (60-240-156-60.tpgi.com.au [60.240.156.60]) by mail8.tpgi.com.au (envelope-from petrus4@tpg.com.au) (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l1R9BIAi015064 for ; Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:11:20 +1100 Message-ID: <000a01c75a4f$3ee32be0$3c9cf03c@owner704ff21d8> From: "Petrus" To: Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:11:19 +1100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2869 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2962 Subject: The Amsterdam Compiler Kit X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 09:30:32 -0000 Hi, I hope nobody minds me sending this here, but I looked at the list of mailing lists on the web site, and this seemed like the most relevant place. I was looking for alternate compilers to GCC a couple of days ago, and ended up finding the Amsterdam Compiler Kit. (http://sourceforge.net/projects/tack/) It's the compiler that Andrew Tanenbaum is apparently using for Minix. From what I read, it used to be commercial, and at one point Richard Stallman apparently actually asked him if it could be used as the basis of GCC, but it seems he was turned down. As you can see from the address though, it is now on Sourceforge, and is under the BSD license. I checked both Freshports and Google, and this apparently isn't something which anyone associated with FreeBSD has heard about yet, at least according to what Google brought up. I adamantly hope that this is something that FreeBSD could eventually use. If it was, it could be a major step I'm assuming in removing the BSDs' reliance on the GNU project entirely. Given the way the FSF has been behaving recently, that could only be a good thing. Unfortunately my own knowledge of C in particular is more or less entirely non-existent, so I would be unable to help get it into shape. It apparently only compiles binaries in the a.out format in particular, so I'm assuming that the FreeBSD developers would want to do at least some modification to it. Petrus