Official compiler

[Chris Wright via Digitalmars-d]

On Thu, 18 Feb 2016 21:39:45 +0000, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

> On Thursday, 18 February 2016 at 21:30:29 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> It's not a strawman. Walter has state previously that he's explicitly
>> avoided looking at the source code for other compilers like gcc,
>> because he doesn't want anyone to be able to accuse him of stealing
>> code, copyright infringement, etc.
> 
> Isn't this much more likely to happen if you don't look at the codebase
> for other compilers? How do you know if someone submitting code isn't
> just translating from GCC if you haven't looked at GCC?

That's the exact opposite of true.

With copyright, the fact that you created yours on your own is sufficient 
defense, assuming the courts agree. If by sheer coincidence you come up 
with code identical to what's in GCC, but you can show that you didn't 
take the code from GCC, you're in the clear.

Patents, well, you're infringing even if you didn't refer to any other 
source. But if you did look at another source, especially if you looked 
in the patent database, you open yourself up to increased damages.