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This gives the worrying possibiltiy that Apple can benefit from an open source Clang and LLVM now, and in future can make thecomponents required to compile code
by wooger 11y ago
This gives the worrying possibiltiy that Apple can benefit from an open source Clang and LLVM now, and in future can make thecomponents required to compile code to their platforms (mainly thinking iOS) proprietary.
They're already moving to encourage / require iOS devs to ship them LLVM IR code - the most logical reason for this is so that they can keep the last part of compilation entirely proprietary in future, taking further freedoms from users and developers.
They design and fab their own ARM chips already, so this is plausible.
- TD-Linux 11y agoThey also of course did the opposite with Swift - created a proprietary front end.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoExactly. They did that sort of thing with Mac OS and iOS on Darwin. They're doing it with Clang. They always do it. It's how they make billions of dollars. Not sure why you worry whether a particular company might scheme: simply don't buy their stuff. See how that works? And despite Google's BS, I have plenty of ways to keep Android devices largely under my control. On that side of the fence, people stopped worrying and started modding en masse. :) Further, mobile security vendors such as OK Labs w/ OKL4 let us isolate that mess while programming directly on the kernel or a custom runtime (think MirageOS for mobile). So, we have plenty of options because we aligned with a company doing open-source mobile with little lock-in. Align with closed-source and lock-in loving companies then you get what you had coming. ;)