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Yes, at one point Apple made a big deal about Java being a "primary" language on the OS X platform. It had proper Coca bindings, Mac like look & feel, etc. St

by Corrado 16y ago

Yes, at one point Apple made a big deal about Java being a "primary" language on the OS X platform. It had proper Coca bindings, Mac like look & feel, etc. Steve hawked it in one of the early OS X keynotes as being the future of the Mac platform. An easy language for all those that were confused by Objective-C. Several years ago Apple reversed their position on Java and have been ignoring it ever since. This is merely the last act in the Java play at Apple. Goodnight sweet prince!

rbanffy 16y ago
> Steve hawked it in one of the early OS X keynotes as being the future of the Mac platform That's standard practice. You make it easy to port apps to your platform until you gain traction and until your exclusive technologies do, then make it hard to port away from your platform by phasing out technologies that would enable that. A Java app that runs fine on OSX but that's easy to port to (or directly run on) Windows or Linux does Apple no good while an application written in Objective-C depending on the latest *Kit stuff locks both developer and user into Apple's walled garden. Their move from GCC to clang is no coincidence.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > Their move from GCC to clang is no coincidence. Erm... what? Clang has already been ported to Windows (and other platforms). Their move from GCC to clang comes from GCC sucking goat's balls at error reporting and being integrated into an IDE. You might want to note Apple produces an IDE so that's kind-of a big deal for them, and a big reason for the existence of LLVM and related technologies (Clang, LLDB, ...) is very much that they can be used as libraries and easily integrated into tools. Seriously, you should be careful, your anti-apple-tag shows a bit too heavily in that comment.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Clang/LLVM is BSD while GCC is GPL. That means Apple can extend them all they want without ever giving you, or their competition, any sources. If they ever perceive a threat from their competition, Clang/LLVM provides a lot more maneuvering space than GCC ever would. And yes, GCC is a very hard thing to integrate into tools and it's that way by design.
    - lemming 16y ago
      And yes, GCC is a very hard thing to integrate into tools and it's that way by design. Any reference for that claim? This would seem to be an absurd design decision. It's more work to design this way but the benefits are enormous.
      - Someone 16y ago
        http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GCC_Plugins http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GCC_Plugins gives some background.
      - Hemospectrum 16y ago
        GCC has always been a centerpiece in the plan for the "viralization" of the GPL, and support for its role in this plan has always driven design decisions in GCC. This policy has caused a lot of headaches even just within the free software community (eg. http://lwn.net/Articles/343608/ http://lwn.net/Articles/343608/). I can't find a citation for this at the moment, but RMS has said on several occasions that GCC has to be difficult to integrate into other tools just for the sake of pushing the GPL. For example, this was his explanation for why improvements to GCC's intermediate representation formats (GIMPLE and friends) were refused for a long time.
        stcredzero 16y ago
        ...RMS has said on several occasions that GCC has to be difficult to integrate into other tools just for the sake of pushing the GPL. For example, this was his explanation for why improvements to GCC's intermediate representation formats (GIMPLE and friends) were refused for a long time. Weird. Though not as bad as the worst of Microsoft's shenanigans, this strikes me as in the same class of uncivil moves that the FSF complains about proprietary software vendors pulling.
        rbanffy 16y ago
        > this strikes me as in the same class of uncivil moves that the FSF complains about proprietary software vendors pulling Why? Did you buy a copy of GCC?
- CountSessine 16y ago
  Actually, their move from GCC to their own internally developed clang has way more to do with this than some walled-garden fantasy: http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20070721.195500.f37fa735.en.html http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20070721.195500.f37fa735... "GCC 4.2.1 will be the last release of GCC covered by version 2 of the GNU General Public License. All future releases will be released under GPL version 3." http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20071009.202219.6b725019.en.html http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20071009.202219.6b725019... "The compilers in this release are covered by GNU General Public License version 3."
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    The GPLv3 does not apply to code compiled by GCC 4.2.1+. It applies to code you try to fork from it.
    - CountSessine 16y ago
      Actually, if you developed and distributed a non-GPL compatible plug-in for GCC, the GCC license prevents you from linking to the gcc stdlib without distributing built code under the GPL. It's a peculiar exception - and Apple is almost certainly never going to be in violation of it. Still, the point is that Apple's lawyers are terrified that it could somehow taint iOS/OS X/iTunes if someone comes to believe that Apple might be in violation of it. Why take the chance? Clang is a compliant and fast c/c++ compiler at this point, and is mostly clean code (which is more than can be said of gcc).
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        As I noted elsewhere, I wonder what kind of patent protection if offers to downstream users of derived products. Since BSD-ish licenses don't mandate the passing of redistribution rights, I must assume the patent protection (like OpenJDK users enjoy - much to Oracle's non-enjoyment) isn't there. I am not saying Apple wants to patent-troll downstream developers, but that's a risk that's worth noting.
protomyth 16y ago
Apple's "proper Coca bindings" was probably an overstatement. It had a binding that didn't really work well and was incomplete due to the dynamic nature of Objective-C and the lack of it on Java.

by Corrado 16y ago

rbanffy 16y ago

> Steve hawked it in one of the early OS X keynotes as being the future of the Mac platform That's standard practice. You make it easy to port apps to your platform until you gain traction and until your exclusive technologies do, then make it hard to port away from your platform by phasing out technologies that would enable that. A Java app that runs fine on OSX but that's easy to port to (or directly run on) Windows or Linux does Apple no good while an application written in Objective-C depending on the latest *Kit stuff locks both developer and user into Apple's walled garden. Their move from GCC to clang is no coincidence.

masklinn 16y ago
> Their move from GCC to clang is no coincidence. Erm... what? Clang has already been ported to Windows (and other platforms). Their move from GCC to clang comes from GCC sucking goat's balls at error reporting and being integrated into an IDE. You might want to note Apple produces an IDE so that's kind-of a big deal for them, and a big reason for the existence of LLVM and related technologies (Clang, LLDB, ...) is very much that they can be used as libraries and easily integrated into tools. Seriously, you should be careful, your anti-apple-tag shows a bit too heavily in that comment.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Clang/LLVM is BSD while GCC is GPL. That means Apple can extend them all they want without ever giving you, or their competition, any sources. If they ever perceive a threat from their competition, Clang/LLVM provides a lot more maneuvering space than GCC ever would. And yes, GCC is a very hard thing to integrate into tools and it's that way by design.
  - lemming 16y ago
    And yes, GCC is a very hard thing to integrate into tools and it's that way by design. Any reference for that claim? This would seem to be an absurd design decision. It's more work to design this way but the benefits are enormous.
    - Someone 16y ago
      http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GCC_Plugins http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GCC_Plugins gives some background.
    - Hemospectrum 16y ago
      GCC has always been a centerpiece in the plan for the "viralization" of the GPL, and support for its role in this plan has always driven design decisions in GCC. This policy has caused a lot of headaches even just within the free software community (eg. http://lwn.net/Articles/343608/ http://lwn.net/Articles/343608/). I can't find a citation for this at the moment, but RMS has said on several occasions that GCC has to be difficult to integrate into other tools just for the sake of pushing the GPL. For example, this was his explanation for why improvements to GCC's intermediate representation formats (GIMPLE and friends) were refused for a long time.
      - stcredzero 16y ago
        ...RMS has said on several occasions that GCC has to be difficult to integrate into other tools just for the sake of pushing the GPL. For example, this was his explanation for why improvements to GCC's intermediate representation formats (GIMPLE and friends) were refused for a long time. Weird. Though not as bad as the worst of Microsoft's shenanigans, this strikes me as in the same class of uncivil moves that the FSF complains about proprietary software vendors pulling.
        rbanffy 16y ago
        > this strikes me as in the same class of uncivil moves that the FSF complains about proprietary software vendors pulling Why? Did you buy a copy of GCC?
CountSessine 16y ago
Actually, their move from GCC to their own internally developed clang has way more to do with this than some walled-garden fantasy: http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20070721.195500.f37fa735.en.html http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20070721.195500.f37fa735... "GCC 4.2.1 will be the last release of GCC covered by version 2 of the GNU General Public License. All future releases will be released under GPL version 3." http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20071009.202219.6b725019.en.html http://archives.free.net.ph/message/20071009.202219.6b725019... "The compilers in this release are covered by GNU General Public License version 3."
- rbanffy 16y ago
  The GPLv3 does not apply to code compiled by GCC 4.2.1+. It applies to code you try to fork from it.
  - CountSessine 16y ago
    Actually, if you developed and distributed a non-GPL compatible plug-in for GCC, the GCC license prevents you from linking to the gcc stdlib without distributing built code under the GPL. It's a peculiar exception - and Apple is almost certainly never going to be in violation of it. Still, the point is that Apple's lawyers are terrified that it could somehow taint iOS/OS X/iTunes if someone comes to believe that Apple might be in violation of it. Why take the chance? Clang is a compliant and fast c/c++ compiler at this point, and is mostly clean code (which is more than can be said of gcc).
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      As I noted elsewhere, I wonder what kind of patent protection if offers to downstream users of derived products. Since BSD-ish licenses don't mandate the passing of redistribution rights, I must assume the patent protection (like OpenJDK users enjoy - much to Oracle's non-enjoyment) isn't there. I am not saying Apple wants to patent-troll downstream developers, but that's a risk that's worth noting.

protomyth 16y ago

Apple's "proper Coca bindings" was probably an overstatement. It had a binding that didn't really work well and was incomplete due to the dynamic nature of Objective-C and the lack of it on Java.