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>It's not like objective-c is closed to other people, and the extensions to Objective-C that Apple has made are open. When Objective-C was developed in 86 it w

>It's not like objective-c is closed to other people, and the extensions to Objective-C that Apple has made are open. When Objective-C was developed in 86 it was closed source. NeXT purchased it (in 88, still closed), and planed to keep it closed source. Orginal Obj-C would be parsed into byte code to be compiled by the GCC, not directly parsed. GNU didn't agree with this (adding a way to compile byte code). Eventually The FSF/GNU sued them over this because the Objective-C compiler was simply a modification of the GCC, without code contributed back to the GCC. Thus, it was open sourced. As the Clang/LLVM toolchain removes "FSF lawsuits" from possible things that could happen. I think its unlikely we'll see Swift be open sourced.

chipotle_coyote 12y ago
As the Clang/LLVM toolchain removes "FSF lawsuits" from possible things that could happen. That toolchain nonetheless appears to be open sourced, so I'm not convinced it stands as evidence that Apple won't open source Swift. (Not that it stands as evidence that they will, either.) Wikipedia's telling of GNU and Objective-C's history sounds somewhat less combative than yours. According to Richard Stallman, "NeXT proposed to distribute a modified GCC in two parts and let the user link them. Jobs asked me whether this was lawful. It seemed to me at the time that it was, but since the result was very undesirable for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer. What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges would consider such schemes to be 'subterfuges' and would be very harsh toward them. So I went back to Jobs and said we believed his plan was not allowed by the GPL." There's no suggestion that the FSF ever sued NeXT; Stallman's own description boils down to "We told them they couldn't do that, and they said okay and made it free."
- valarauca1 12y ago
  The tool chain was developed in academia for 6 years before they adopted [1]. With an incredibly pervasive BSD-esque license [2]. Thus, companies can use the code without giving themselves back. This is why Sony uses BSD based OS on the playstation [3]. Its cheap, they can modify it, and keep what changes they deem necessary. And yes, I'm aware Apple has given back to the project. But it seems pretty obvious why they don't use the GCC when you consider how hard Apple has tried to purge the GPL from its OS [4]. And the legal battle NeXT had with the FSF/GNU [5]. I stand by, we won't see Apple open source it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LLVM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LLVM [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Open_Source_License http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Ope... [3] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU1MzA http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU1MzA [4] http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/ http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/ [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C#Popularization_through_NeXT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C#Popularization_thro...

chipotle_coyote 12y ago

As the Clang/LLVM toolchain removes "FSF lawsuits" from possible things that could happen. That toolchain nonetheless appears to be open sourced, so I'm not convinced it stands as evidence that Apple won't open source Swift. (Not that it stands as evidence that they will, either.) Wikipedia's telling of GNU and Objective-C's history sounds somewhat less combative than yours. According to Richard Stallman, "NeXT proposed to distribute a modified GCC in two parts and let the user link them. Jobs asked me whether this was lawful. It seemed to me at the time that it was, but since the result was very undesirable for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer. What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges would consider such schemes to be 'subterfuges' and would be very harsh toward them. So I went back to Jobs and said we believed his plan was not allowed by the GPL." There's no suggestion that the FSF ever sued NeXT; Stallman's own description boils down to "We told them they couldn't do that, and they said okay and made it free."

valarauca1 12y ago
The tool chain was developed in academia for 6 years before they adopted [1]. With an incredibly pervasive BSD-esque license [2]. Thus, companies can use the code without giving themselves back. This is why Sony uses BSD based OS on the playstation [3]. Its cheap, they can modify it, and keep what changes they deem necessary. And yes, I'm aware Apple has given back to the project. But it seems pretty obvious why they don't use the GCC when you consider how hard Apple has tried to purge the GPL from its OS [4]. And the legal battle NeXT had with the FSF/GNU [5]. I stand by, we won't see Apple open source it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LLVM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LLVM [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Open_Source_License http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Ope... [3] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU1MzA http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU1MzA [4] http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/ http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/ [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C#Popularization_through_NeXT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C#Popularization_thro...