>> of course...unix also used to come with a c compiler.  how many
>> commercial unix systems still do, now that susv2 has marked it
>> "legacy", and therefore, not "required".
>> 
>>    http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/intro.html#tag_001_003_003
>
>That's a revisionist view history and misinterpretation of the reference
>on your part!
>
>The real reason the compiler was dropped from full releases was both
>that they wanted to charge a separate licensing fee for the compiler and
>customers wanted to buy the compiler separately (disks were still small
>back then and lots of people didn't want the compiler wasting space, as
>well there were those who knew it was making the base OS price higher
>than necessary and were constatnly complaining).  Also everyone (well at
>least Sun and AT&T) at the time were making improvements in their
>compilers, and even writing whole new ones.

whether it's documentation dictating practices, or practices written
up in documentation, i still feel that the c compiler should be
included with the operating system.

it is, i feel, almost the same as fsck.  fsck comes with unix, and
always did.  would you like a 3rd party fsck?  windows comes with an
almost useless fsck.  the 3rd party ones are *much* better, but they
should not be.  the people that make the file system ought to be able
to make a better fsck.

>The reason I say you've mis-interpreted that particular web page is
>because it in no way indicates that a C compiler is a legacy feature of
>the standard -- what's marked as a "legacy" tool is "cc", aka K&R C, or
>as the page you can link to from there says "The cc utility is an
>interface to an unspecified C-language compilation system."  If you look
>up c89 in the same standard you'll find it is *not* a legacy tool!

i've never met a c89 anywhere.  although solaris now comes with a java
compiler.  i won't be using it though...java and i have agreed not to
talk to one another.

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