[tosti]

IIRC, since GCC got covered by GPL3.

It used to be slower and I've spent way too much time working around C++ bugs in GCC 2.95

(The fact that I remember the problematic version is telling :)

[gpderetta]

Everybody remembers that specific version :). And I wasn't even programming professionally at that time!

[bluGill]

For many years that was the only version that could be used. What become gcc3 took years. In the end it was better, but for a while gcc 2.95 was the best we had despite the bugs.

[kjs3]

Oof...I know of at least 1 embedded shop still using 2.95.4 for various 'reasons'.

[pjmlp]

Ah the egcs drama.

[physicsguy]

They changed their major release numbers too tbf. 4.x it was point release per year, now it's a major release per year.