Re: [avr-chat] Can't Install avr-gcc in FreeBSD

[Bob Paddock]

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:16:43 -0400, Eric Weddington  
<address@hidden> wrote:

> Although, I hate to admit that I wasn't aware that there was a GCC port  
> forMicrochip's products. I had heard
> of a possible port a while back (1-2 years ago maybe?) but I never knew  
> what came of it. Pointers welcome.

Microchip themselves ported GCC to their dsPIC family.
They honor the letter of the GPL but not the spirit.

You can find the source code on their web site, after
a bit of digging, but it is fairly useless as it
does not come with any linker scripts nor libraries.

Their party-line that you get from anyone you ask about
that is "We don't want to offend other compiler vendors" so
we are charging you through the nose for a compiler that
should be free.  If you buy their compiler at $900, it
comes with a real nice fine print letter that says
in effect "send us even more money and we will send you the
missing source code".

Microchip then will promote their "Student Edition" that
does strange things like "turn off optimization" after
thirty days.  So that code that might have fit/worked
breaks after thrity days.