Re: [9fans] GUI toolkit for Plan 9

[Richard Uhtenwoldt <ru@river.org>]

Thomas: 

>> Odd that NetBSD uses GCC, isn't it?  No, it's no great wonder why more
>> people use GCC than 8c.  There are two reasons:
>> 
>> GCC generates better code
>> GCC has a more liberal license than 8c.

Bengt Kleberg writes:

>There is also a third reason:

Fourth reason: when Plan 9's license was liberalized 2 years ago, gcc
was already well entrenched.  before the liberalization I think using
8c would've cost you $400.  

2 years ago, there was already so much invested in gcc that technical
and minor license differences between it and its competitors make
almost no difference.  eg, Intel invested in it to support ia64.  eg,
Glasgow Haskell Compiler and Mercury compiler and probably a lot of
others I do not know about compile to gcc-specific C to take advantage
of the investments made on gcc backends.

So, like Windows 3/95/98/ME, it does not have to be good; 
large network effects keep it popular, good or not.