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Apple’s desire to provide open source products (none) This trope drives me nuts. Go here: http://www.opensource.apple.com http://www.opensource.apple.com You'

Apple’s desire to provide open source products (none) This trope drives me nuts. Go here: http://www.opensource.apple.com http://www.opensource.apple.com You'll find a bunch of open-source projects that Apple has contributed code to (LLVM, WebKit, CUPS), as well as a bunch that they wrote and released (launchd, clang). They've recently released their ARM64 backend for LLVM. I will be surprised—extremely so—if Apple choose not to open-source Swift. It has no downsides for them, and it's obvious that many people will simply refuse to get involved with it if they don't.

tptacek 12y ago
Apple hasn't so much contributed to LLVM and Webkit as fundamentally enabled them, right? Chris Lattner is an engineering lead at Apple, for instance. I agree with your prediction about Swift being open sourced. Among other things: as nice as Swift might be, its #1 value proposition is "easy to build iOS applications in", so the more people using it the bigger the developer base for iOS becomes. I can't see the downside to opening it. That doesn't, however, mean they'll open it up on HN's preferred schedule.
- mantrax5 12y ago
  Apple is contributing heavily to LLVM and making the code open source. One easily visible example is Clang, a c/c++/obj-c compiler for LLVM, which is open-source and pretty much created and maintained by Apple: http://llvm.org/devmtg/2007-05/09-Naroff-CFE.pdf http://llvm.org/devmtg/2007-05/09-Naroff-CFE.pdf
- chc 12y ago
  Lattner created LLVM before joining Apple. Apple hired him for LLVM.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    ... and then massively invested in LLVM.
    - chc 12y ago
      Certainly true, but what I'm getting at is, the decision not to close up an open-source project is rather different than the decision to open up a closed-source project. I'm not saying Apple has never contributed to open-source, but that I don't think their decision to heavily support an existing open-source project really reflects on what they'll do with Swift.
mantrax5 12y ago
There are downsides. If people start adopting a cross-platform subset of Swift, and Apple adds features to Swift which objectively require special platform support (and other platforms don't have it), people will not adopt these innovations in their apps even when targeting Apple platforms, out of fear their previously cross-platform Swift code will no longer be cross-platform. This effect ties Apple's hands behind their back in their ability to guide and steer the platform's evolution going forward. They'll be adding improvements and no one will be using them. Of course, since Swift is so tightly integrated with Objective-C and Cocoa already, Swift is already quite Apple-specific. And that's what Apple really needs. A good language that makes sense for their platforms. We already have various incarnations of Mono and Java and what not compiling to iOS if people want cross-platform code. But the lesson is there are always two sides of the coin here. Remember when Android being "open" had no downsides, either? Witness the malware, fragmentation, and Google having to write really nasty contracts with their OEMs in order to be able to steer the platform in the right direction for Android's own good.
jasonlotito 12y ago
Apple providing open source contributions or products doesn't mean they have a desire to do so. I don't imagine they set out to provide an open source product. Rather, they build out a product, and decide that it's in it's best interest to open source this part of it. I think that's an important distinction. Even when they've expressed desire publicly to make something open, what it means to Apple doesn't exactly mean the same thing to the rest of the computing world.
chc 12y ago
I don't see how this meshes with the facts of the matter. The line of thinking that leads you to the conclusion "Apple will surely open-source Swift" could just as easily lead one to the conclusion "Apple has surely already promised to open-source Swift," which is obviously not correct. The fact of the matter is that they haven't and haven't expressed any interest whatsoever in doing so. The fact that it has no downsides for them and that keeping it closed will alienate people has clearly not been a compelling reason to even talk about open-sourcing Swift up to this point. So the question is, what would cause it to become compelling to Apple in the future? I don't think it's impossible that Apple would open-source it, but I don't think the evidence clearly points in that direction.

tptacek 12y ago

Apple hasn't so much contributed to LLVM and Webkit as fundamentally enabled them, right? Chris Lattner is an engineering lead at Apple, for instance. I agree with your prediction about Swift being open sourced. Among other things: as nice as Swift might be, its #1 value proposition is "easy to build iOS applications in", so the more people using it the bigger the developer base for iOS becomes. I can't see the downside to opening it. That doesn't, however, mean they'll open it up on HN's preferred schedule.

mantrax5 12y ago
Apple is contributing heavily to LLVM and making the code open source. One easily visible example is Clang, a c/c++/obj-c compiler for LLVM, which is open-source and pretty much created and maintained by Apple: http://llvm.org/devmtg/2007-05/09-Naroff-CFE.pdf http://llvm.org/devmtg/2007-05/09-Naroff-CFE.pdf
chc 12y ago
Lattner created LLVM before joining Apple. Apple hired him for LLVM.
- tptacek 12y ago
  ... and then massively invested in LLVM.
  - chc 12y ago
    Certainly true, but what I'm getting at is, the decision not to close up an open-source project is rather different than the decision to open up a closed-source project. I'm not saying Apple has never contributed to open-source, but that I don't think their decision to heavily support an existing open-source project really reflects on what they'll do with Swift.

mantrax5 12y ago

There are downsides. If people start adopting a cross-platform subset of Swift, and Apple adds features to Swift which objectively require special platform support (and other platforms don't have it), people will not adopt these innovations in their apps even when targeting Apple platforms, out of fear their previously cross-platform Swift code will no longer be cross-platform. This effect ties Apple's hands behind their back in their ability to guide and steer the platform's evolution going forward. They'll be adding improvements and no one will be using them. Of course, since Swift is so tightly integrated with Objective-C and Cocoa already, Swift is already quite Apple-specific. And that's what Apple really needs. A good language that makes sense for their platforms. We already have various incarnations of Mono and Java and what not compiling to iOS if people want cross-platform code. But the lesson is there are always two sides of the coin here. Remember when Android being "open" had no downsides, either? Witness the malware, fragmentation, and Google having to write really nasty contracts with their OEMs in order to be able to steer the platform in the right direction for Android's own good.

jasonlotito 12y ago

Apple providing open source contributions or products doesn't mean they have a desire to do so. I don't imagine they set out to provide an open source product. Rather, they build out a product, and decide that it's in it's best interest to open source this part of it. I think that's an important distinction. Even when they've expressed desire publicly to make something open, what it means to Apple doesn't exactly mean the same thing to the rest of the computing world.

chc 12y ago

I don't see how this meshes with the facts of the matter. The line of thinking that leads you to the conclusion "Apple will surely open-source Swift" could just as easily lead one to the conclusion "Apple has surely already promised to open-source Swift," which is obviously not correct. The fact of the matter is that they haven't and haven't expressed any interest whatsoever in doing so. The fact that it has no downsides for them and that keeping it closed will alienate people has clearly not been a compelling reason to even talk about open-sourcing Swift up to this point. So the question is, what would cause it to become compelling to Apple in the future? I don't think it's impossible that Apple would open-source it, but I don't think the evidence clearly points in that direction.