[fusiongyro]

Both you and Chuck see this situation as naturally arising out of some aspect of open source software. I see this as being simply a side-effect of particular compiler developers enjoying optimization more than portability. Couldn't it just be priorities on these teams that led them to this situation, without it being some kind of indirect result of some over-arching political/economic phenomenon?

[asabjorn]

I agree and as an academic I can say that optimizations are sure sell for an academic paper, and I think most new optimizations are first developed in academic work in industry or at universities. Portability on the other end seems like a hard sell and if it sounds too much like engineering it is academic suicide.