Thu Apr  9 12:26:15 MSK DST 1998

The European Space Agency, ESA, is promoting the use of free development
tools - GCC and GNAT - for its own projects based on spacecraft
microprocessors. The long duration of space projects requires that compiler
systems be stable and that they be supported for ten years or more to
guarantee post-launch maintenance of flight software ... ESA has followed
with considerable interest the work done in the USA by the Free Software
Foundation in developing the GNU C Compiler ... The use of these compilers
is being promoted by ESA as a way of obtaining reliable low-cost
compilation systems for spacecraft microprocessors.