darwin may lose primary target status on FSF gcc

[Jack Howarth]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 06:41:04PM -0500, Brian Barnes wrote:
>
> Well, except for the fact that development of a llvm-based replacement  
> is not proceeding, no plans exist for it to proceed, would have to be  
> started from scratch, may not be free, and would take years... but  
> you're still missing the point: Jack and I are pessimistic about a free, 
> feature-complete llvm-based replacement _ever_ existing for Fortran.  
> Besides, if gcc/gfortran 4.5 doesn't work on OS X, I lose an update to my 
> normal toolchain, and I'm trying to get work done here!
>
> I'd also prefer to be able to use the same free compiler (gcc/gfortran) 
> for development on both OS X and linux (since most HPC codes will 
> eventually be run on linux machines for data collection).  The  
> alternative, buying the Intel compiler to get work done, is just more  
> fodder for the people that want to talk about the "Apple Tax".
>
> Brian
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Brian,
   What some folks here miss is that a major chunk of the MacPorts
and Fink user base are scientific or engineering users. You might
find a few into the geek trick of running Gnome or KDE under MacOS X
but in terms of actual productive work, those packages are marginal
to what many folks are using these packaging systems for. I would
also point out that Fink has seen many users migrate over due to
the paucity of scientific packages in MacPorts. This might account
for the blase attitude here.
               Jack