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> It absolutely ignores that Apple was a contributor of GCC Actually, Apple were compelled to contribute to GCC. That is one of the points of the article. Th

> It absolutely ignores that Apple was a contributor of GCC Actually, Apple were compelled to contribute to GCC. That is one of the points of the article. That an Objective-C compiler exists at all is because of GCC. The fact that we can see and examine the source is because of the GNU GPL.

coldtea 12y ago
>That an Objective-C compiler exists at all is because of GCC. The fact that we can see and examine the source is because of the GNU GPL. Yeah, no. They contribute the same to LLVM -- and even more than they did with GCC--, while still nobody "compells" them. Plus Apple released lots of other Open Source stuff, even when not compelled by GPL. Nobody forced with respect to Darwin for example.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  > Yeah, no. They contribute the same to LLVM -- and even more than they did with GCC--, while still nobody "compells" them. This does not negate OP's statement, "The fact that we can see and examine the source [of the Objective-C compiler] is because of the GNU GPL." We have very well-documented and undisputed evidence that NeXT wanted to make the Objective-C compiler proprietary, and that they only backed down after the FSF lawyers determined that that would be a violation of the license. As far as Apple's open source contributions, according to Saurik, they often fall short even when legally compelled, let alone their voluntary contributions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2083877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2083877