Richard Stallman is responsible for the shrinking economy

I don't know the specifics of the code the commercial compiler developers have used, but it's certainly the general rule. When you include third-party code in your code, it's typically either open source of some sort (thus you may release it, or even be obliged to release it and/or any changes you made), or it's closed source of some sort, and you don't have the right to pass on the source code to third parties (if you even see the source code yourself). Obviously the rules may change if you are a big enough customer, have enough money, and sign enough licensing agreements and contracts.

The boundaries between "application code" and "libraries", and "core components" and "surrounding components" varies depending on the application and who you ask. Some people will think of the IDE as a minor addition just to round off the toolset, others will see it as their crown jewels. I only picked the windows dll's as an example where you definitely cannot reveal the source code to others (and only very rarely get to see the code yourself), and yet your application is dependent on them.

The role of Standards organizations is to debate the merits of the technical briefs (papers) before it and arrive at a decision on the merits. These conclusions are then packaged into TR's and standards and are then distributed to standards organizations in member countries to approve and comment on. After the required number of member country approvals and resolution of country to country differences the TR or standards are published by a recognized international body and member standards organizations.

It is a long process that recognizes and resolves individual differences. The difference between standards and regulations is that standards are written by the mutual consent of the members and regulations are generally written to restrict or encourage a set of standards.

The EPA regulates much of the automotive industry, the code written in the automotive industry uses ISO C99.

Regards,

-- Walter Banks Byte Craft Limited

What is the problem with duplicating the compiler, linker, libraries, and optimisations? The details of these need to be included along with the source. And they all should be open source and thus available to all. For example, if I write some code for the avr and say exactly which release of avr-gcc (and binutils) I used, and which release of avr-libc, and which additional patches for the compiler and library, then you can download these sources, build the compiler and library on whatever host operating system and whatever host processor you want, then download my source code and makefile and build an identical binary. This is part of the point of using open source, and in particular in using gcc, which goes to great lengths to ensure identical operation every time, regardless of the host or how gcc itself was compiled.

Obviously there need to be some restrictions in the application's source code - you can't have 'const char buildDate[] = "__DATE__";' in your code!

This is all in a single thread, with many branches. The time for separated threads and changing subject lines has long passed in this monster thread. Readers are either using a decent newsreader and keeping track, or they have dropped out. Changing the subject line just adds more noise.

Thanks for the explanations. I really do appreciate it.

I suspect you may have had a role there to play.

...

You yourself wrote in this thread, "The open source movement has not embraced standards and has not generally participated in the standards process." I am no longer curious or concerned and I can't think of anything more to add, unless someone brings up something new.

Thanks, Jon

He is a pedant and the ONLY one who it right. Besides he changed it to Open Source and I was discussing closed source.