"GCC, the ultimate portable compiler, otherwise known as the GNU
Compiler Collection, has been around since 1987. LLVM, first came
onto the scene seven years ago in the form of a paper entitled
"Architecture for a Next-Generation GCC", which was presented to
the 2003 Annual GCC Developers Summit by Chris Lattner and Vikram
Adve.
"LLVM was conceived as a modular version of GCC, and has had
some success as a more malleable alternative to GCC.
"GCC is part of the GNU project, and was originally developed by
Richard Stallman (with help from Len Tower and others) as a C
Compiler and building block for the GNU operating system. The first
versions of GCC only supported the C language on a limited number
of architectures, but over the years GCC and its spin-offs evolved
into a generic compiler for a broad kaleidoscope of programming
languages and platforms."