> It was Sun's corporate backing and muscle that enabled you to get their SDK for free.
You could get GCC for free before Java 1.0 was released. My personal introduction to GCC was Walnut Creek's Hobbes OS/2 CD-ROM from 1994, the EMX port. Paid for the CD-ROM, but we could have downloaded it for free if we had Internet access. EMX did DOS too, and DJGPP was also available at the same time (and ended up overtaking EMX under DOS).
You could get GCC for free before Java 1.0 was released. My personal introduction to GCC was Walnut Creek's Hobbes OS/2 CD-ROM from 1994, the EMX port. Paid for the CD-ROM, but we could have downloaded it for free if we had Internet access. EMX did DOS too, and DJGPP was also available at the same time (and ended up overtaking EMX under DOS).