zortech - symantec - digital mars

[rikki cattermole]

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).