Re: KEil bought by ARM

On Sun, 29 Oct 2005, larwe wrote:

>
> Chris Hills wrote:
>
> > Though it can take weeks to finding the old versions of Open source
> > compilers and especially getting all the right parts.
>
> Ah, the fatal flaw in my reasoning. Wouldn't it be fantastic if a
> gifted engineer could devise some magical technology whereby the
> sourcecode tarball I download today could be stored in some fashion
> against the possibility that I might require it in the future. I guess
> we'll just have to wait for someone to invent some such device. I
> envisage it could take the form of a rotating cylinder of wax with a
> solenoid-driven stylus to write data and a floating stylus for
> readback. I already have a black-and-white dog to look askance at the
> audio output horn of this appliance:
> <http://www.dogster.com/pet_page.php?i=163050&PHPSESSID=bfc5ad8d08ee7fd89b93b5ada84ba026>
> (my wife maintains this page, by the way - I disclaim all
> responsibility, except that it's my hand feeding him the Starbucks
> madeleine cake).
>
> > With commercial compilers you can usually get the original vendor to
> > provide the right version overnight. I have myself provided specific
>
> ROFL!!!!! Some vendors, maybe - Rowley, for instance. Did you ever try
> to do this with, say, IAR? How about OrCAD? My employer is a
> multi-billion-dollar Fortune 50 company, and we certainly never got
> that level of support out of them. Just how big does one have to be in
> order to see these legendary levels of support?
>
> Let me summarize my experiences in pithy, yet supremely apposite terms:
>
> * If you lose your dongle, you are fucked. $Multi-K for the latest
> compiler version. Oh, and you'll have to port and requalify all your
> code.

whereas moving from version 2.7 to 2.9 of GCC did not? Dream on! If you're
constantly updating your GCC compiler without serious retesting I'd really
like to know who your employer is so that I can avoid them and their
products.

>
> * If you upgrade your machines and the dongle doesn't work with your
> new hardware, you are fucked. $Multi-K for the latest compiler version.
> Oh, and you'll have to port and requalify all your code.

So you expect the vendor to constantly follow the whims of the PC market
and OS supplier without any kind of compensation? Do you also expect the
maker of your car to upgrade it free of charge for you when YOU decide to
switch from petrol to diesel?

>
> * If you upgrade your compiler and have to return the dongle as part of
> the upgrade process, and then find that you need to recompile some old
> code with the old compiler, you are fucked.

So you want a free new compiler. I mean you want to keep using the
old compiler and you want to use the new compiler for the same initial
price.

> Either port all your code
> or hunt eBay. Or go to one of those Russian or Greek websites and pay
> EUR50 for a CD-ROM with thirty different cracked compiler versions on
> it. Naturally, the BSA and any certifying authorities (UL, for
> instance) won't mind that you're using a pirated, cracked compiler to
> build life-critical firmware.

Have you ever noticed how the greatest copy protection wingers are also
the ones that try the hardest to protect their own software and IP.

>
> * If the vendor goes belly-up or is acquired by someone who has a
> vested interest in migrating customers to some new platform, you are
> fucked. Might as well rewrite your code from scratch rather than try to
> analyze all the idiosyncrasies of the old and new platforms and get it
> all working happily.

And yet so many people drone on and on about using standards complient
compilers and writing totally portable code.

>
> * If you point out to the compiler vendor that they are costing you
> thousands of dollars in engineering time, you are not merely fucked
> vigorously but actively flogged and drenched in brine during the
> process - a sensation I don't happen to relish, though I understand
> it's quite popular in certain circles.

Whereas if you employ several engineers to maintain your own opensource
tools it costs you nothing. I guess you also provide the rest of the
industry with the bug fixes and upgrades you have made to these tools
(being open source and all) and to hell with the fact that you might be
helping your competitors.

>
> That lovely old oft-quoted comment about the British Navy ("a hotbed of
> buggery and the lash") is an utterly accurate description of what it's
> like to live with proprietary, copy-protected tools.

I've only every seen this quoted once by some arrogent arsehole.

>
> > some years ago, than pick up from the compiler vendor an exact version
> > of commercial SW.
>
> ... that likely as not will not function on contemporary operating
> systems due to dongle issues.

Since the dongle was working correctly in the hardware it was designed for
you might like to complain to the hardware manufacturer or the OS vendor
of the new platform. Maybe you could get them to fix the problem for you.
After all you seem to have unreasonable expectations of everyone else.

>
> > Your illustration falls over when you compare like with like. If you
> > have the source (or executables) for the old SW then the problems are
> > the same. Unless you are suggesting that the old compiler SW is that old
> > that it will not run on modern OS?
>
> The compilers will generally run just fine when cracked. It's the
> copy-protection that works actively to defeat any sane form of
> development system archival. And challenge-response registration
> systems are just as bad, by the way - because they route your urgent
> issues back through the nexus of a [potentially nonexistent] compiler
> vendor who has a vested interest in forcing you to spend on an upgrade.

Wouldn't it be great if we didn't need copy protection. Then the software
vendor could reduce its costs by not having to go to all the trouble and
you the user could benefit by running the software on any machine you
liked. I'm sure you'd buy a license for every single user that used it.
The fact is the vendor doesn't go to all the trouble of adding copy
protection to force you to upgrade, it's to protect himself and his
investment from unscrupulous users.

>
> > source compiler re-built for the later OS? I assume you compiled it with
> > the same compiler used originally? if you rebuilt it with a newer
>
> Yes!
>


Regards
Sergio Masci

http://www.xcprod.com/titan/XCSB - optimising PIC compiler
FREE for personal non-commercial use



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