On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Tim Lahey <tim.la...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Tim Lahey <tim.la...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 3:37 PM, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> OS X comes with XCode, it's just not installed. It's just XCode 4 that >>> costs $4.99. However, what happens if people install a binary gcc? >> >> How? > > http://hpc.sourceforge.net/ > >> >>> Does Cython work at that point? >> >> Surely not. >> > > So, Cython doesn't work if you just install a binary gcc (and > appropriate libraries)?
If you install enough of gcc + libraries + header files + ??? to build Python from source, Cython should work just fine. >>> Or are you just arguing that XCode is >>> necessary because it's an easy way to a binary gcc. XCode is also nice because it "plays well" with all the existing OS X libraries. >> I don't know how to install GCC on OS X, except by installing XCode. >> There is a lot more to GCC than "just a binary". There are lots of system >> headers, development libraries, etc. It is likely illegal to >> redistribute these >> without Apple's permission. These come with XCode. >> > > It depends. There are a lot of system headers that come from open source > projects. Plus, Darwin (which is open source) should have everything for > command line development. Also, it's dubious that header files are even copyrightable, given their form is so constrained by their function, etc. >>> I understand why XCode isn't installed by default since the developer >>> tools and documentation is several GB. Most people don't need that. >>> >>> I'm of the general opinion that XCode 4 being $4.99 isn't a problem. >>> It's entirely possible that it will be included with 10.7, we just >>> don't know. I've worked on platforms where the development tools have >>> cost much more, but we still have XCode 3. For people who are only >>> using the compilers, that's more than adequate since we can download >>> the source for the updated compilers. >>> >>> To comment on the thread title, Apple hasn't forked gcc. They worked >>> on developing a BSD compiler (clang) and since then, people have done >>> work to use gcc as the front end and llvm as the back end. The >>> Dragonegg project is the most recent work on this. Apple wanted a BSD >>> compiler since they couldn't integrate the compiler into XCode on the >>> level they wanted with the GCC compiler due to the GPL license. >> >> It would be frustrating if once Apple switches away from GCC >> completely, they start charging a few hundred bucks for XCode... >> > > Apple's LLVM compiler is open source (and has binaries for download), > > http://llvm.org/releases/ > > Right now, XCode 4 is $4.99 or free with the $99/year developer > membership. At $4.99 it's effectively paying for the servers and > bandwidth costs (since the download is about 4GB). I doubt Apple will > charge hundreds of dollars for their development tools when they want > to encourage development on their platform. > > I tend to believe that Apple's charging $4.99 because of their > accounting rules (which is why they charge $0.99 for Facetime) and > XCode 4 will be free with 10.7 (like XCode 3 was with 10.5/10.6). This > is the first time Apple has had an XCode major upgrade that didn't > coincide with a system upgrade. I don't think that kind of cost is a major impenitent to getting a compiler--if one is extreem about "freedom" one can compile gcc from scratch. (Well, one probably wouldn't be using OS X in the first place.) It's really nice that Apple makes it so convenient though. - Robert -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
