What is Open Watcom?
The Open Watcom products are the first and only commercial
compilers to be open sourced and, with more than a million lines
of source code, the Watcom products represent one of the largest
pools of commercial source code of any type ever released
under an Open Source license. Sybase is releasing the code under
an Open Source license that complies with the Open Source
Definition, published by the Open Source Initiative (http://www.opensource.org).
Initially the development on the Open
Watcom Project will be closed, as SciTech and a team of selected
external developers work to prepare the source code for release
under an Open Source license. During this time, the Open Watcom
team will create and distribute a binary patch upgrade
release (11.0c) on this web site. This binary patch will be
available free of charge to existing Watcom C/C++ and Fortran
customers and will include all updates and bug fixes developed by
Sybase since the last commercial update of the product (11.0b).
Following the binary patch release, the complete source to the
Open Watcom products will be released on the web site, so that any
developer will be able to use and modify the
code.
Open Watcom is an effort to take the commercial Watcom
compilers, and turn them into an Open Source Project. When Sybase
realised that the Watcom C/C++ and Fortran compilers were no
longer commercially viable, they searched around to find a
solution for their existing customers. SciTech Software, a long
time user of Watcom compiler products contacted Sybase about
turning the compilers into an Open Source project, and hence the
Open Watcom Project was born.
Open Watcom News
For the latest press release news for the Open
Watcom Project, check the Open
Watcom Press Room. Members of the media can also find
contact information for Open Watcom Media Relations as
well as what other publications have to say about the Open Watcom
Project.
Contacting SciTech
SciTech Software, Inc. is the current official maintainer for the
Open Watcom project. The
contact information page
contains addresses, phone numbers and email addresses for SciTech Software
departments.
If you want to find out about employment opportunities at SciTech Software
and the benefits of joining the SciTech team, check the
SciTech Software Employment Opportunities
section on the main SciTech web page.
Want to Join the Team?
When the Open Watcom 1.0 release is complete, the team will be open for
general admission from anyone. The Open Watcom team is closed for the initial
part of the project due to NCA restrictions with Sybase. If you have any
further questions, please visit our FAQ section first.
