Option 1- write 6 lines of shell script that replaces xclm, and inserts the hash of the newly compiled xclm file into three gpl licensed files. The source is available, so you can clearly see what they are doing. How many companies are left in the MCU chip selling business that also are in the compiler selling business? If that is true, then the mips side will most likely end up the same eventually. It will be interesting how they merge the Atmel side into what they have- there is no way they are going to make you pay for optimization for their sam/avr parts. The Atmel side could do the same thing- add paid support options to their already open/free gcc arm compiler (maybe they already have paid support options, I don't know). Those in charge of XC16/32 could eliminate all the extra code for the various license levels and could work on one single codebase. MCHP could then use the resources currently allocated for licensing (dongles, license server, license verification, etc.) to support the actual hardware.
I would assume very little would change for those who currently buy support/extra compiler optimizations. Let everyone get the same compiler, whoever wants/needs priority support, they can pay (as they do now).
The quick answer for older versions of the compiler given by George (see down in the comments) is to simply replace the xclm.MCHP would be better off (in my opinion) by just selling 'priority support' (or whatever they currently call it -High Priority Access or something). First things first, how to get this (that is, an XC32 which optimizes) in the easiest way. Since this is by far the most popular article on my site, I decided to tidy it up somewhat. What?! It is a God-damned GPLed software, or at least to conform with GPL, it must be! So let's see, either compile it from source, or let FSF and the lawyers solve it. It's Microchip's XC32 compiler, which is based on the GPL-ed GCC, but the same time in the IDE, it shows that it's optimizations are disabled: to enable them, one is supposed to buy the Pro version. At work I recently ran across an interesting, and the same time kind of scary situation.
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