Talk:Watcom C/C++

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Sources

• Comparing C/C++ compilers Matthew Wilson, October 1, 2003. DrDobbs.com
• C Programming. Al Stevens, October 1, 1993. DrDobbs.com. "... how the new 32-bit Watcom C/C++ 9.5 compiler goes about implementing exception handling."

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Lexein (talk • contribs) 15:54, 17 May 2011

License issues

It'd be nice to know about the contentious parts of its open source license, the reasons why some foundations rejected it. --Hooperbloob (talk) 14:22, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, done. Peter Flass (talk) 15:08, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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WFM. Didn't know that Open Watcom is dead. Be..anyone (talk) 05:46, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

The OpenWatcom site was completely dead for a while but they seem to have brought back the non-wiki portions with a different URL structure in order to host things like the manuals.

As for the pace of development, according to the EDM2 wiki's page for OpenWatcom, back in 2012, a situation somewhat analogous to the OpenOffice-LibreOffice fork occurred when contributors got fed up with the core team unilaterally deciding to purge outside contributions from the code.

The people who left are responsible for the unofficial v2 fork and its repository is still receiving quite a bit of active development. --192.171.41.51 (talk) 15:55, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Citation needed for "free usage for noncomm usage" in license field of metadata block

The license field of the metadata block currently says "Sybase Open Watcom Public License version 1.0 (free usage for noncomm usage)" but every other site I've visited says that it's licensed for non-commercial OR commercial use.

I also didn't see any non-commercial restrictions when I quickly browsed through the license included with the codebase.

Beyond that, I've also seen various commercial releases (primarily retro-games that want to release DOS versions as extras, like Retro City Rampage) using Open Watcom to produce binaries for commercial sale.

Is this perhaps a counter-productively phrased attempt to clarify that this unique license is copyleft in a fashion more onerous than the AGPL? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.52.6.188 (talk) 17:55, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

POV issue regarding licence

I think it isn't neutral to call the licence non-free in the opening paragraph without any sort of explanation.

Firstly, there is no basis, legally or otherwise, for the FSF (or Debian or Fedora or ...) being the final arbiter of what free is in this context.

Secondly, when you look at the actual issue, it turns out that what the licence avoids is companies taking the work of contributors and close up the source and use it to compile software, either their own or their partners'. The FSF has been in exactly the same position which made them create version 3 of the GPL as well as the AGPL more recently and, going further back, the concept of copy-left in the first place. Consider for example that companies commonly take BSD-licensed code and close up the source.

It isn't true that the licence is ‘non-free’. Rather, the FSF has the opinion that a compiler is only free if you can close up the source as long as the actual act of compilation happens ‘privately’ whereas Watcom is of the opinion that such use is unacceptable. One might say that the FSF's licences contain a loophole where it comes to compilers. Note that no honest user of the code, be it a developer of the compiler itself or a developer of other software, loses any sort of freedom. It is a matter of opinion, not fact.

I think all opinionated language should be removed from the article and issues that are too complex to discuss in the lead should be removed from the lead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 10:01, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Error in assertion about private use.

I've just read the License.txt from the ftp of openwatcom.org, and it clearly says that 'Deploy' means to use the supplied software (the compiler) or any code edited or derived from it in any distributed capacity, commercial or otherwise. It states clearly (at least twice) that the term 'Deploy' does not apply to private use, even edits or derivations. It looks as if they just don't want people distributing variants of it unless others can see exactly what changed. If these changes are a result of research and development done by a business entity, it is still not considered as 'Deployment' if no distribution occurs. These terms are reasonable because if no-one ever knows, it could not be enforcible anyway, and I imagine they (and their lawyers) are not that stupid. :)

It seems to me that the license is clear (if a bit long), and not nearly as limiting as some seem to claim. It seems to me to be aimed at protecting the integrity of the compiler itself, so it can be trusted, and any code (open, closed, or compiled) that is based on the work originating with Sybase must be open for audit by anyone who wants to be able to use and trust the compiler.

As far as any program I write entirely for myself, whether commercial or not, open source or not, compiled or not, they make no mention of it, so I assume that if I create my own program and choose to use their compiler to convert my own code to an executable program, they place no restriction on me at all, other than to warn me that it's like an OEM part, and that I am responsible for my code, and under no circumstances can I claim fitness for any purpose based on the compiler or any trust anyone chooses to place in it. While they offer the tools and help, they're telling me I'm on my own regarding responsibility for my own work, and that's the way they seem to like it, so I doubt they're trying to control how I distribute my own code. 81.187.19.110 (talk) 09:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Retail price data missing for each versions of their time

It would be nice to have some data, what a Watcom C compiler from 1992 did cost. --84.158.122.178 (talk) 04:51, 22 December 2021 (UTC)