[derefr]

> and you can’t rely on it being available and supported

Is there a reason that you’d be relying on what’s included in the FreeBSD base system? If I were building a piece of software and developing a FreeBSD target for it, I’d probably just write a port manifest for it and contribute it; and in so doing, I can have my port manifest declare a dependency on the GCC port.

Just like if I create an Ubuntu PPA, I can depend on Ubuntu system packages, or even other people’s PPAs. (And it’s even less arduous than the Ubuntu PPA case, because PPAs are all their own third-party package repos that you have to add, while Ports is one flat namespace. As long as it’s “in ports”, you can depend on it without asking the user to do the equivalent of `sudo apt-repository add ...`)

[pjmlp]

IT security where you just get what they think you should be using, and regular accounts don't have execution permissions on any user accessible file system.

[derefr]

Presumably we're talking, here, about relying on GCC as part of the build-process of a package or script you're trying to deploy to this system.

If you don't have execute permissions, then, well, you're not going to be "installing" any software in any practical sense—you might be able to compile sources or copy files around, but you can't make the resulting binaries executable. Nor are you going to be doing much software development, for the same reason.

So why, at that point, would you need a compiler to exist on the box? It'd be like having GCC in a busybox installation.

[pjmlp]

Yes you will be doing software development, but only for what matters to your employer and nothing else.

Savy UNIX IT can take care of it, apparently the experience of what meant working in UNIX shops with thin terminals is now lost.