Is C open source?

c compiler-construction open-source
Hypercube picture Hypercube · Feb 24, 2011 · Viewed 12.4k times · Source

This is probably a stupid question, but I've been wondering about this for a while. Does C (or any other low-level language, for that matter) even have source, or is the compiler the part that "does all the work", including parsing? If so, couldn't different compilers have different C dialects? Where does the stdlib factor into this? I would really like to know how this works.

Answer

Teekin picture Teekin · Feb 24, 2011

The C language is not a piece of software but a defined standard, so one wouldn't say that it's open-source, but rather that it's an open standard.

There are a gazillion different compilers for C however, and many of those are indeed open-source. The most notable example is GCC's C compiler, which is all under the GNU General Public License (GPL), an open-source license.

There are more options. Watcom is open-source, for instance. There is no shortage of open-source C compilers, but without a doubt the most widespread one, at least in the non-Windows world, is GCC.

For Windows, your best bet is probably Watcom or GCC by using Cygwin or MinGW.

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