5 ms·

Apple of course has the right to do whatever they please, but the world would be better if their neat new language was available in other contexts than just the

Apple of course has the right to do whatever they please, but the world would be better if their neat new language was available in other contexts than just their system. It pretty much guarantees that the only people who will use it will be a certain class of iOS developer. I will probably never use it unless I am forced to for a job or something. Swift is currently in the same position that C# was in before Mono. It will probably be popular in certain circles, but it's not going to ever dominate the language field like Java, Javascript, and C do. Microsoft's recent freeing of the .NET infrastructure makes it a real, bona fied choice now. Apple should follow suit early, for the good of the language.

azinman2 12y ago
Objective-c, despite having compilers on other platforms, 99% of the time is used for programs running on an apple platform. It just hasn't made it into other universes, despite itself having many nice qualities (especially over c++ imho). Swift is Apple upgrading their own environment, which as an iOS dev is welcome. I'm not sure the cross-platform framework problem is one that helps them or makes much money compared to what is status quo. But at least their proprietary world got better for those of us who write for it.
dgreensp 12y ago
In the world RMS wants, Apple would not have the right to develop Swift and make it proprietary. That's pretty incredible to me, and far more relevant than discussing Swift's barriers to adoption. In RMS's world, hackers close ranks to make sure the power stays in the hands of the people, not the corporations. Sure, corporations might develop a bit of proprietary code now and then, but they are outpaced by armies of hackers writing GPLed code and replicating any innovations they develop. All the best compiler toolchains are GPLed in this world, and corporations are basically forced to participate in the Free Software movement, or suckle at its teat. It would not be possible in practice to sell software, because any software your computer could run would have to be GPLed! A lot of other stuff happened instead. Now we have hackers working at corporations writing open-source code and sharing it with other corporations and the world. Companies don't sell software so much as provide various human and computer services. Corporations aren't evil, they can provide funding and organizational structure that is actually pretty valuable. And so on.
- gillianseed 12y ago
  >In the world RMS wants, Apple would not have the right to develop Swift and make it proprietary. In the world RMS wants, people would shun proprietary software due to it not giving them the rights which are afforded to them through copyleft. This is what he is advocating, that people should not accept proprietary software due to it not respecting their rights, not that proprietary software should be illegal.
  - quadrangle 12y ago
    aside from obfuscated or secret source, proprietary software relies on legal restrictions. RMS would be perfectly fine removing the artificial legal restrictions that proprietary terms use if it didn't hurt the ability to protect software freedom for free software. Proprietary software terms should be illegal.
- __david__ 12y ago
  What you're saying is misleading. Here's how I would say it: "In the world RMS wants, Apple would not have the right to develop Swift on top of a GPL-ed compiler platform and make it proprietary." That's not incredible at all, and makes perfect sense. I've never seen the the Free Software movement as "hackers" against "corporations". Places like Cygnus (bought by Red Hat) made a mint selling Free Software consulting services. Nobody ever had a problem with that. They thrived because they were good and they solved real problems for people. None of that is antithetical to either the Free Software movement or corporations.
- boomlinde 12y ago
  > In the world RMS wants, Apple would not have the right to develop Swift and make it proprietary. I am glad that you are more clear about this position of his than he is himself. Personally, I would never have guessed it.
  - hga 12y ago
    The utopia he desired circa ... 1988 or so was one where all programmers were paid to do their thing by the government, and all software was his type of free.

azinman2 12y ago

Objective-c, despite having compilers on other platforms, 99% of the time is used for programs running on an apple platform. It just hasn't made it into other universes, despite itself having many nice qualities (especially over c++ imho). Swift is Apple upgrading their own environment, which as an iOS dev is welcome. I'm not sure the cross-platform framework problem is one that helps them or makes much money compared to what is status quo. But at least their proprietary world got better for those of us who write for it.

dgreensp 12y ago

In the world RMS wants, Apple would not have the right to develop Swift and make it proprietary. That's pretty incredible to me, and far more relevant than discussing Swift's barriers to adoption. In RMS's world, hackers close ranks to make sure the power stays in the hands of the people, not the corporations. Sure, corporations might develop a bit of proprietary code now and then, but they are outpaced by armies of hackers writing GPLed code and replicating any innovations they develop. All the best compiler toolchains are GPLed in this world, and corporations are basically forced to participate in the Free Software movement, or suckle at its teat. It would not be possible in practice to sell software, because any software your computer could run would have to be GPLed! A lot of other stuff happened instead. Now we have hackers working at corporations writing open-source code and sharing it with other corporations and the world. Companies don't sell software so much as provide various human and computer services. Corporations aren't evil, they can provide funding and organizational structure that is actually pretty valuable. And so on.

gillianseed 12y ago
>In the world RMS wants, Apple would not have the right to develop Swift and make it proprietary. In the world RMS wants, people would shun proprietary software due to it not giving them the rights which are afforded to them through copyleft. This is what he is advocating, that people should not accept proprietary software due to it not respecting their rights, not that proprietary software should be illegal.
- quadrangle 12y ago
  aside from obfuscated or secret source, proprietary software relies on legal restrictions. RMS would be perfectly fine removing the artificial legal restrictions that proprietary terms use if it didn't hurt the ability to protect software freedom for free software. Proprietary software terms should be illegal.
__david__ 12y ago
What you're saying is misleading. Here's how I would say it: "In the world RMS wants, Apple would not have the right to develop Swift on top of a GPL-ed compiler platform and make it proprietary." That's not incredible at all, and makes perfect sense. I've never seen the the Free Software movement as "hackers" against "corporations". Places like Cygnus (bought by Red Hat) made a mint selling Free Software consulting services. Nobody ever had a problem with that. They thrived because they were good and they solved real problems for people. None of that is antithetical to either the Free Software movement or corporations.
boomlinde 12y ago
> In the world RMS wants, Apple would not have the right to develop Swift and make it proprietary. I am glad that you are more clear about this position of his than he is himself. Personally, I would never have guessed it.
- hga 12y ago
  The utopia he desired circa ... 1988 or so was one where all programmers were paid to do their thing by the government, and all software was his type of free.