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by 12_throw_away 829 days ago
The complaints in that thread, about how hard it is to exchange money for Fortran compilers (and then, if you succeed, trying to figure out the overly paranoid license management software) really brings back "fond" memories of academia 20 years ago. In a world with github and crates.io and pypi and npm, it really is weirdly quaint.
3 comments

This is the case for only the NAG Fortran compiler (nagfor).

All the other major Fortran compilers on the market are easily available in the "modern" way: gfortran, Intel ifort/ifx, NVIDIA nvfortran, Classic flang, AOCC flang, and Arm flang. All of them are available on Ubuntu with .deb packages. For the last two, you need to download the .deb files manually, but the others can be installed via apt. In addition, they are all free of charge, although this is less important point.

Despite all the complaints I made in the original Fortran Discourse post, I must stress that nagfor is surely one of the best Fortran compilers (top 3) in all aspects (bug-free, responsiveness of tech support, support of the standard, clarity of debugging information, documentation ....).

A great compiler, but needs some modernization of its accessibility.

I think it's only a problem for the NAG compiler, not for gfortran or Intel Fortran, which are more widely used.