Octave without Xcode

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

I'm moving this discussion to the maintainers' list.

2012/1/23 Alexander Hansen <address@hidden>:
> A fair number of open-source packages require headers from the SDKs
> from Xcode by default to build on OS X.

Well, as far as we're concerned, do we require Xcode? Should we be
telling Octave users who want to install a few Octave-Forge packages
that they have to first get Apple's permission to do so?

Also, Octave isn't primarily open source, so that limitation shouldn't
concern us either. ;-)

> By avoiding the native windowing system in favor of X11, (but not the
> official one provided by Apple, whose SDK is in Xcode) it might be
> possible to avoid Xcode, but I've never tried.

What is the SDK that Xcode provides and you can't compile without?

It seems very strange that there are free compilers for MacIntosh
personal computers but no free way to use them (i.e. without
registering with Apple and agreeing to their clickthroughs). Is this
really the current state of affairs?

- Jordi G. H.