Over the next year,
Tiemann began playing around with the source code,
creating a native compiler for the C+ programming
language. One day, while delivering a lecture on the
program at Bell Labs, Tiemann ran into some AT&T
developers struggling to pull off the same thing.
"There were about 40 or 50 people in the room, and I
asked how many people were working on the native code
compiler," Tiemann recalls. "My host said the
information was confidential but added that if I took a
look around the room I might get a good general idea."
It wasn't long after, Tiemann says, that the light bulb
went off in his head. "I had been working on that
project for six months," Tiemann says. I just thought
to myself, whether it's me or the code this is a level
of efficiency that the free market should be ready to reward."
Tiemann found added inspiration in the GNU Manifesto,
which, while excoriating the greed of some software
vendors, encourages other vendors to consider the
advantages of free software from a consumer point of
view.
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