Whether or not gcc was "obscure" in 1990 really depends on which circles you were in, I'm sure, but it's true that it was hardly an unknown project, and that Sun's decision to unbundle the C compiler helped it to become much more popular.
Also missing from the article was a nod to Cygnus Support. A lot of the engineering work for gcc was done by the engineers at Cygnus, who basically collected support fees that were substantially cheaper than the Sun Pro C compiler. To be fair, I doubt Sun at that era had anticipated the rise of the "sell support and custom engineering for free software" business model. Cygnus was one of the first companies who was able to show that it was in fact workable.
> In 1990 I became Executive Director of the Sun User Group. That December I headed for San Jose for SUG's Eighth Annual Conference and Exhibit. ... The second group was irate because Sun had "unbundled" its software. That is, rather than getting all of Sun's developer tools together, they had to be purchased separately. And of course, they cost more this way.
> But wait. Why purchase the C compiler from Sun, when you could get a better one for less money from the FSF? That's what a large number of Sun's users asked themselves. And the net result was a real jump in CD sales at the FSF. (Several years later, when I organized the Freely Redistributable Software Conference [February 1996] and then was Vice President of the FSF, I realized more fully just how much Sun had benefited the FSF. I'm certain this was not a foreseen consequence.)
I think that something a "large number of ... users" know about cannot meaningfully be called "obscure", else my lack of knowledge about European football/soccer teams makes it an obscure sport.
Also missing from the article was a nod to Cygnus Support. A lot of the engineering work for gcc was done by the engineers at Cygnus, who basically collected support fees that were substantially cheaper than the Sun Pro C compiler. To be fair, I doubt Sun at that era had anticipated the rise of the "sell support and custom engineering for free software" business model. Cygnus was one of the first companies who was able to show that it was in fact workable.