Open Watcom effort makes first public release

From Slashdot: “It’s been a long time since /. ran this story, but a few days ago the Open Watcom Project made it’s first public release. It’s only a binary patch targeted at 11.0a/b owners, but it’s still an important roadmark on the way to the planned full open source release of both the Watcom C/C++ and Fortran compilers. Most programmers, particularly game programmers, should remember the amount of prestige id software’s DOOM generated for the Watcom compiler and the sudden proliferation of 32-bit DOS games with the tell-tale “DOS/4GW” startup banner. The download is available for free, but Open Watcom requests a $1-$50 donation to help support the development effort required to remove code Sybase doesn’t own and to prepare the open source release.”