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digitalmars.D - zortech - symantec - digital mars

reply Ali <fakeemailadress example.com> writes:
Out of curiosity

What is the history between dmd and symantec
I was able to find few things online

I know that there once was a company called zorland, which later 
becamse
zortech

Zortech, created c/c++ compilers
Symantec tookover zortech, to get into the compiler business

Walter Albright, was part of Zortech (not clear if he was the 
founder or an employee)

But this is what I was able to find ends

How was dmd started in Symantec, did they sell a D compiler for a 
while, did they use it internally as a competitive advantage, 
what was Symantec plans for D?

Just curious .. if Walter care to share, or if someone else knows 
more than I do, please share
Feb 03 2018
next sibling parent Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:
Judging by copyright dates Symantec stopped development in 1998, 
and D was started in 2000.
Feb 03 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> writes:
On 3 February 2018 at 16:47, Ali via Digitalmars-d
<digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 Out of curiosity

 What is the history between dmd and symantec
 I was able to find few things online

 I know that there once was a company called zorland, which later becamse
 zortech

 Zortech, created c/c++ compilers
 Symantec tookover zortech, to get into the compiler business

 Walter Albright, was part of Zortech (not clear if he was the founder or an
 employee)

 But this is what I was able to find ends

 How was dmd started in Symantec, did they sell a D compiler for a while, did
 they use it internally as a competitive advantage, what was Symantec plans
 for D?

 Just curious .. if Walter care to share, or if someone else knows more than
 I do, please share



http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/symantec-c-professional/184409168
Feb 03 2018
prev sibling parent reply Ali <fakeemail example.com> writes:
On Saturday, 3 February 2018 at 15:47:59 UTC, Ali wrote:

 Out of curiosity

 What is the history between dmd and symantec
 I was able to find few things online

 I know that there once was a company called zorland, which 
 later becamse
 zortech

 Zortech, created c/c++ compilers
 Symantec tookover zortech, to get into the compiler business

 Walter Albright, was part of Zortech (not clear if he was the 
 founder or an employee)

 But this is what I was able to find ends

 How was dmd started in Symantec, did they sell a D compiler for 
 a while, did they use it internally as a competitive advantage, 
 what was Symantec plans for D?

 Just curious .. if Walter care to share, or if someone else 
 knows more than I do, please share


I found this link

https://dlang.org/blog/2017/10/25/dmd-windows-and-c/

And I think those few lined quoted below answers one of my 
question, How did Symantec have any rights to the dmd backend

"When a new programming language is born these days, it’s not 
uncommon for its tooling to be built on top of an existing 
toolchain"

"So it was a no-brainer to make use of his existing tools and 
compiler backend and just focus on making a new frontend for DMD."

"Finally, Symantec had the legal rights to the existing backend, 
which meant their license would apply to DMD."

Some people had the impression that D started as a closed source 
project( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16270937 )
I believe this proves this perception wrong
Feb 05 2018
parent reply rikki cattermole <rikki cattermole.co.nz> writes:
On 05/02/2018 5:07 PM, Ali wrote:

 On Saturday, 3 February 2018 at 15:47:59 UTC, Ali wrote:

 Out of curiosity

 What is the history between dmd and symantec
 I was able to find few things online

 I know that there once was a company called zorland, which later becamse
 zortech

 Zortech, created c/c++ compilers
 Symantec tookover zortech, to get into the compiler business

 Walter Albright, was part of Zortech (not clear if he was the founder 
 or an employee)

 But this is what I was able to find ends

 How was dmd started in Symantec, did they sell a D compiler for a 
 while, did they use it internally as a competitive advantage, what was 
 Symantec plans for D?

 Just curious .. if Walter care to share, or if someone else knows more 
 than I do, please share


 
 I found this link
 
 https://dlang.org/blog/2017/10/25/dmd-windows-and-c/
 
 And I think those few lined quoted below answers one of my question, How 
 did Symantec have any rights to the dmd backend
 
 "When a new programming language is born these days, it’s not uncommon 
 for its tooling to be built on top of an existing toolchain"
 
 "So it was a no-brainer to make use of his existing tools and compiler 
 backend and just focus on making a new frontend for DMD."
 
 "Finally, Symantec had the legal rights to the existing backend, which 
 meant their license would apply to DMD."
 
 Some people had the impression that D started as a closed source 
 project( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16270937 )
 I believe this proves this perception wrong


The comment is correct, dmd was indeed closed source for a good number 
of years.

I believe it was Brad (from my hazy memory) who when joined got it 
opened up (and had the bug tracker installed too).
Feb 05 2018
next sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Tuesday, February 06, 2018 03:07:02 rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d 
wrote:

 The comment is correct, dmd was indeed closed source for a good number
 of years.

 I believe it was Brad (from my hazy memory) who when joined got it
 opened up (and had the bug tracker installed too).


Regardless of that though, most of the complaints about dmd's backend not
being open source have been because the license wasn't open source even
though the source was available, and far too many folks seem to have thought
that the entire compiler was closed source when the front-end was actually
open - to the point that it was relicensed so that gdc could be part of gcc,
and that didn't need to get Symantec involved at all.

Fortunately, it's all Boost now, so none of this is a problem anymore, but
historically, there have been a lot of misunderstandings about how open dmd
has been due to the fact that the backend wasn't fully open source.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 05 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 6 February 2018 at 03:07:02 UTC, rikki cattermole 
wrote:

 The comment is correct, dmd was indeed closed source for a good 
 number of years.


dmd's frontend has been GPL licensed since at least version 0.50, 
released Nov 20, 2002. You can still download these old archives 
off the digital mars website. This fact was made for the very 
early GCC integration and for the Linux port (people often forget 
D was Windows only for quite some time early on!)

The backend I think was made source-available around 2010. I know 
it was by 2012 (I downloaded 1.70 to prove it) but not sure 
exactly when it came out.
Feb 05 2018
prev sibling parent Ali <fakeemail example.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 6 February 2018 at 03:07:02 UTC, rikki cattermole 
wrote:

 On 05/02/2018 5:07 PM, Ali wrote:

 On Saturday, 3 February 2018 at 15:47:59 UTC, Ali wrote:

 Some people had the impression that D started as a closed 
 source project( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16270937 )
 I believe this proves this perception wrong


 The comment is correct, dmd was indeed closed source for a good 
 number of years.

 I believe it was Brad (from my hazy memory) who when joined got 
 it opened up (and had the bug tracker installed too).


yes, but, it seem it was closed source for pragmatic reasons, 
reusing the symantec C++ back-end assets, not because it was 
started as a closed source commercial language

like say eiffel
Feb 07 2018