On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 7:21 PM, James Cameron <quozl@us.netrek.org> wrote:

The installation discs for Mac OS X already contain software licensed
under the GNU GPL (e.g. bash), so the additional obligations under the
GPL would not have been the reason to exclude a compiler.

It seems much more likely that it was the size. Several hundred
megabytes that aren't required by most users should always be omitted
from the installation discs, so that more room is made for what most
users require.

The same is done with Ubuntu and Debian installation images. Most of
the tools needed to build Ubuntu are not included in the installation
image, and require downloading "apt-get build-dep $packagename".

You misunderstood what he was saying. The GCC compiler IS included on the installation disks as part of the XCode program. You can also download this program off of the internet(The download is over a gig by the way last I looked). The complaint is that Apple only bundles gcc with the XCode program and a lot of useless stuff that aren't necessarily used by people like us. But they are used by most Mac developers, and Apple I am sure wants to encourage their use and 'their' way of doing things.

Seablade