4 ms·

With a permissive license, it's vulnerable to embrace, extend, extinguish.

• est31 7y ago
  The ability to make it proprietary is in fact the reason why Apple didn't adopt gcc and became the main supporter of clang/llvm instead. So the issue is already here. Fortunately Apple's ambitions only center around keeping full control of the Apple walled garden (the apple main building is a wonderful symbol of it). And should a strong proprietary competitor outside of Apple's ecosystem emerge, people can always fork clang and put it under GPLv3 or similar.
  • mitchty 7y ago
    If that really were the case, why did Chris Lattner try to give clang/llvm over to the FSF and merge it into gcc? Which failed only apparently due to Stallman not noticing the emails. After which Apple started pushing clang/llvm as in a way, they were shunned by gcc. The rest of your comment is... way too political towards gpl.
    • jcranmer 7y ago
      Chris Lattner suggested it back when gcc was first working on LTO, and clang didn't exist. 2004 or 2005-ish, IIRC. Back then, he was still working at UIUC. Apple pushed clang as a competitor to gcc much later, closer to 2010-ish.
      • mitchty 7y ago
        I'm curious then how the email from Chris in 2005 comes from his apple.com email address? https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html Doesn't seem to add up with your proposed timeline. Care to explain?