[[Image:GCCGNU Compiler Collection logo.png|100px|The GNU leaping out of the egg - a pun on GCC's EGCS history]]</div>The '''[[GNU Compiler Collection]]''' (usually shortened to '''GCC''') is a set of [[programming language]] [[compiler]]s produced by the [[GNU|GNU ව්යාපෘතිය]]<!--GNU|GNU Project-->. It is [[නිදහස් මෘදුකාංග]]<!--free software--> distributed by the [[නිදහස් මෘදුකාංග පදනම]]<!--Free Software Foundation--> (FSF) under the [[GNU General Public License|GNU GPL]] and [[GNU Lesser General Public License|GNU LGPL]], and is a key component of the [[GNU toolchain]]. It is the standard compiler for the free software [[Unix-like]] [[මෙහෙයුම් පද්ධති]]<!-- operating systems-->, and certain proprietary operating systems derived from them such as [[Mac OS X]]. Originally named the '''GNU C Compiler''', because it only handled the [[C programming language]], GCC was later extended to compile [[C++]], [[Java (programming language)|Java]], [[Fortran]], and [[Ada programming language|Ada]] among others. GCC was written by [[Richard Stallman]] in 1987 as the compiler for the GNU Project, in order to have a compiler available that was [[නිදහස් මෘදුකාංග]]<!--free software-->. Its development was closely shepherded by the [[නිදහස් මෘදුකාංග පදනම]]<!--Free Software Foundation-->. In 1997, a group of developers, dissatisfied with the slow pace and closed nature of official GCC development, formed a project called [[EGCS]] (Experimental/Enhanced GNU Compiler System), which merged several experimental [[fork (මෘදුකාංග)|forks]]<!--fork (software)|forks--> into a single project forked from GCC. EGCS development subsequently proved sufficiently more vital than GCC development, and EGCS was eventually "blessed" as the official version of GCC in April 1999. '''[[GNU Compiler Collection|(More...)]]'''
