Dependence on gcc

[Heber Farnsworth]

I have a quest for anyone who might like to contribute a thought on the 
subject. 
I am a big fan of free software but I wonder why octave MUST be built with gcc. 
 
For those of us with proprietary systems the compiler we have is in many cases 
superior (in terms of performance) to gcc.  Shouldn't one be able to use any 
good compiler?  There may be good reasons for not doing this but I don't know 
what they are.  

I work on a DEC Alpha system and would like to avoid gcc at least until 2.8 
comes out (some problems relating to Alpha systems will be fixed then -- I 
hope).

Any comments?

Heber Farnsworth
Department of Finance
Fisher College of Business
the Ohio State University