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This foundation is the best thing to have come out of GPLv3. Cos of it Apple had to support LLVM which has made compiler research and quality increase by leaps

This foundation is the best thing to have come out of GPLv3. Cos of it Apple had to support LLVM which has made compiler research and quality increase by leaps and bounds. Thanks to the authors of GPLv3!

bluejekyll 11y ago
Ah, the irony. It's always the unintended consequences that get you. Though to be fair, Apple opted not to use Linux years ago, and that is still GPLv2. Was it technology politics, or licenses. Only Steve Jobs knows, well and maybe Linus.
- Sanddancer 11y ago
  Apple opted not to use Linux because they already had the Nextstep kernel and management daemons, which had been in use in high-end workstations for a good long time. A lot of early OS X used Nextstep frameworks under the hood, with software like Netinfo used into the 10.4 days.
  - bluejekyll 11y ago
    "Basically, Jobs started off by trying to tell me that on the desktop there were just two players, Microsoft and Apple, and that he thought that the best thing I could do for Linux was to get in bed with Apple and try to get the open source people behind Mac OS X," Torvalds wrote. I disagree with your oversimplification. Apple didn't care about the marketshare of NextStep, bc it was basically non existent. What they needed was a new OS base to start from, but in reality the best thing they got in that deal was Jobs. Next was nice, OSX has nearly completely different kernel, and honestly, who wants the antiquated BSD toolset compared to GNU?
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      antiquated BSD toolset As if BSD development ended?
      - toast0 11y ago
        BSD development hasn't ended, but when was the last time Apple refreshed the userland from upstream?
        pjmlp 11y ago
        It just goes to show how many Mac OS X users care about CLI.
        kitsunesoba 11y ago
        I'm not sure there's much of a correlation there. Most engineers using OS X (a group that's at least as large as Linux-using engineers) use the command line on a regular basis; I think it has more to do with the fact that even a dated *nix userland has 90%+ of what the majority of engineers need.
        girvo 11y ago
        Which is fair enough to gripe about, but with ports or homebrew it's hardly an issue these days.
        rsy96 11y ago
        Well, just a few days before, in the 10.10.5 update of OS X, Apple updated many userland utilities from upstream. This includes apache, curl and python. (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205031 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205031). But you are right in general. Such update is only once in a blue moon.
trengrj 11y ago
What is the use of better compiler technology if you are prevented from modifying your devices and limited to running "approved" applications? I would rather have freedom over speed, especially when the standard phone today is far more powerful than the computers onboard the Apollo 11.
- rwallace 11y ago
  I agree that freedom is important. That's why I like LLVM: it gives me practical freedom to do research on analysis and transformation of actual code. Before, you were legally free to do this, which was a good starting point to be sure, but in practice your options were fork GCC or write and maintain a modern C++ compiler from scratch, either of which would be a high-end project by itself and neither of which would be feasible as a secondary project alongside whatever you were actually trying to do. As for the locking down of devices, I agree this is a problem but I don't believe the causes and potential solutions have anything to do with GCC versus LLVM.
- webaholic 11y ago
  No license is going to fix your issue if the device vendor is unwilling. Look at the current state of Android devices. It is using gcc as the default compiler. Even if Apple used gcc they would lock their devices the same way. Compiler is not the reason for this.
  - trengrj 11y ago
    Agreed but you implied the GPLv3 was useless and I felt compelled to defend it. GPLv3 does help with tivoisation. That is why corporations dislike it.
- toast0 11y ago
  What is the use of better compiler technology if I can't integrate it into the product I ship?
  - sangnoir 11y ago
    And you've reached the heart of the matter - of use to who? GPLv3 tech is of little use to pro-Tivoization organisations & people (hint: it's not the license's fault that your product can't ship it). GPL: more useful to users of the software. BSD: more useful to corporations, especially those that are pro-closed source/pro-Tivoization

bluejekyll 11y ago

Ah, the irony. It's always the unintended consequences that get you. Though to be fair, Apple opted not to use Linux years ago, and that is still GPLv2. Was it technology politics, or licenses. Only Steve Jobs knows, well and maybe Linus.

Sanddancer 11y ago
Apple opted not to use Linux because they already had the Nextstep kernel and management daemons, which had been in use in high-end workstations for a good long time. A lot of early OS X used Nextstep frameworks under the hood, with software like Netinfo used into the 10.4 days.
- bluejekyll 11y ago
  "Basically, Jobs started off by trying to tell me that on the desktop there were just two players, Microsoft and Apple, and that he thought that the best thing I could do for Linux was to get in bed with Apple and try to get the open source people behind Mac OS X," Torvalds wrote. I disagree with your oversimplification. Apple didn't care about the marketshare of NextStep, bc it was basically non existent. What they needed was a new OS base to start from, but in reality the best thing they got in that deal was Jobs. Next was nice, OSX has nearly completely different kernel, and honestly, who wants the antiquated BSD toolset compared to GNU?
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    antiquated BSD toolset As if BSD development ended?
    - toast0 11y ago
      BSD development hasn't ended, but when was the last time Apple refreshed the userland from upstream?
      - pjmlp 11y ago
        It just goes to show how many Mac OS X users care about CLI.
        kitsunesoba 11y ago
        I'm not sure there's much of a correlation there. Most engineers using OS X (a group that's at least as large as Linux-using engineers) use the command line on a regular basis; I think it has more to do with the fact that even a dated *nix userland has 90%+ of what the majority of engineers need.
      - girvo 11y ago
        Which is fair enough to gripe about, but with ports or homebrew it's hardly an issue these days.
      - rsy96 11y ago
        Well, just a few days before, in the 10.10.5 update of OS X, Apple updated many userland utilities from upstream. This includes apache, curl and python. (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205031 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205031). But you are right in general. Such update is only once in a blue moon.

trengrj 11y ago

What is the use of better compiler technology if you are prevented from modifying your devices and limited to running "approved" applications? I would rather have freedom over speed, especially when the standard phone today is far more powerful than the computers onboard the Apollo 11.

rwallace 11y ago
I agree that freedom is important. That's why I like LLVM: it gives me practical freedom to do research on analysis and transformation of actual code. Before, you were legally free to do this, which was a good starting point to be sure, but in practice your options were fork GCC or write and maintain a modern C++ compiler from scratch, either of which would be a high-end project by itself and neither of which would be feasible as a secondary project alongside whatever you were actually trying to do. As for the locking down of devices, I agree this is a problem but I don't believe the causes and potential solutions have anything to do with GCC versus LLVM.
webaholic 11y ago
No license is going to fix your issue if the device vendor is unwilling. Look at the current state of Android devices. It is using gcc as the default compiler. Even if Apple used gcc they would lock their devices the same way. Compiler is not the reason for this.
- trengrj 11y ago
  Agreed but you implied the GPLv3 was useless and I felt compelled to defend it. GPLv3 does help with tivoisation. That is why corporations dislike it.
toast0 11y ago
What is the use of better compiler technology if I can't integrate it into the product I ship?
- sangnoir 11y ago
  And you've reached the heart of the matter - of use to who? GPLv3 tech is of little use to pro-Tivoization organisations & people (hint: it's not the license's fault that your product can't ship it). GPL: more useful to users of the software. BSD: more useful to corporations, especially those that are pro-closed source/pro-Tivoization