<story><title>Why Greet Apple&apos;s Swift 2.0 With Open Arms?</title><url>http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/15/apple-is-not-our-friend.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nickysielicki</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;EDIT: I&amp;#x27;m wrong see below&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m a bit unclear what you seem to think is lost under these circumstances versus copylefted software. Let&amp;#x27;s say Apple released Swift under the GPL. They would still be free to do all of the things you describe.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely not. GPL means anything you put out must be published. If LLVM and Swift are GPL&amp;#x27;d they can&amp;#x27;t develop additions to them, ship them on their Macbooks, and not publish the changes to the rest of the internet.&lt;p&gt;This is what&amp;#x27;s happening right now with LLVM.</text></item><item><author>matthewmacleod</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Imagine Swift becomes a wild success … Will you brush it off again as an understandable move by Apple?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a bit unclear what you seem to think is lost under these circumstances versus copylefted software. Let&amp;#x27;s say Apple released Swift under the GPL. They would still be free to do all of the things you describe.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;So as a developer right now, given that you have a plethora of open tools and an open ecosystem, why would you choose to use a language where a company has the opportunity to manipulate you in the future?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is, as above, no different from the copyleft case.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;So as a developer right now, given that you have a plethora of open tools and an open ecosystem, why would you choose to use a language where a company has the opportunity to manipulate you in the future?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s extraordinary difficult to argue that Apple would be in a position to manipulate me as a developer if I started using Swift. For one thing, once the code is open-source – that&amp;#x27;s it. I can continue developing software using that language. If Apple decide not to release new features, and instead keep them proprietary, then the community is free to fork development.&lt;p&gt;More importantly, if it&amp;#x27;s important to members of the free software community, they are &lt;i&gt;entirely able to develop capital-F-free software on top of Apple&amp;#x27;s release!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m really thankful for copyleft licensing and the amazing tools it&amp;#x27;s given us. But it&amp;#x27;s a vary complex issue, and I just don&amp;#x27;t agree that release under a license with &lt;i&gt;fewer restrictions&lt;/i&gt; is necessarily a bad thing!</text></item><item><author>nickysielicki</author><text>Imagine Swift becomes a wild success; everyone&amp;#x27;s writing everything in Swift. What will your reaction be when Apple again makes a &amp;quot;legitimate business decision&amp;quot; and leverages the success to the benefit of their company and implicitly disadvantages other platforms? Maybe they double up on Swift support on Mac and start shipping additional features first for LLVM&amp;#x2F;Clang on OSX. Will you brush it off again as an understandable move by Apple?&lt;p&gt;I think you would. I certainly wouldn&amp;#x27;t be happy with Apple for doing it, but I would definitely say it&amp;#x27;s understandable. Like you&amp;#x27;re saying, they&amp;#x27;re a business, they make business decisions.&lt;p&gt;The point I&amp;#x27;m trying to make there is any problems that arise from this fall squarely on the developers choosing to embrace this new language. I&amp;#x27;m not writing this comment to convince Apple to act differently. The original post didn&amp;#x27;t make those arguments to Apple. This is all directed at developers, trying to change THEIR actions and feelings.&lt;p&gt;So as a developer right now, given that you have a plethora of open tools and an open ecosystem, why would you choose to use a language where a company has the opportunity to manipulate you in the future? Why write libraries and provide support and do this work for free for Apple? Writing libraries for the benefit of the community provides some security in that no one except the community stands to benefit from it. You can go to sleep happy knowing that you&amp;#x27;re helping out your fellow devs.&lt;p&gt;Writing for the benefit of a community that is paired with executive power means that it can all be swept from under you. Your library is still helping your fellow dev, but it helps the fellow dev with OSX 10.12 more. Now you&amp;#x27;ve contributed to Apple&amp;#x27;s bottom line. Was that your intention?&lt;p&gt;I completely disagree with other commenters in this thread that we have some obligation to be thankful for companies for putting out things with strings attached. I&amp;#x27;m not a spoiled brat for not liking everything. These companies would be absolutely nothing without their developers. It&amp;#x27;s time the community sticks together and realizes the power they have. It&amp;#x27;s not unthankful to demand more. It&amp;#x27;s dangerous to get swept up in the excitement of new languages and to assume good graces. Look no further than what Apple has done to Webkit, LLVM, CUPS and more. First class on OSX, give back only what&amp;#x27;s not newest. Swift will certainly be the same way.</text></item><item><author>matthewmacleod</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s frustrating to see this somewhat blinkered view.&lt;p&gt;Yeah, Apple definitely doesn&amp;#x27;t like copyleft. That&amp;#x27;s okay; lots of people don&amp;#x27;t (especially larger companies – how many large companies actively release GPLd software?). It&amp;#x27;s a legitimate business decision, and there are some good arguments that support it (which you may or may not agree with).&lt;p&gt;The idea that organisations &amp;#x27;owe&amp;#x27; the community copyleft software is therefore a bit foreign to me.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;We&amp;#x27;ll likely see pieces of Swift 2.0 thrown over the wall. But the best stuff will be kept proprietary.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a bit of a weird assumption. Apple&amp;#x27;s statement was the the Swift code and standard library would be open-sourced. What is the &amp;#x27;best stuff&amp;#x27; that we&amp;#x27;re not going to get?&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Apple&amp;#x27;s not-yet-executed move to liberate some of the Swift 2.0 code seems a tactical stunt to win over developers who currently prefer the relatively more open nature of the Android&amp;#x2F;Linux platform … the copyleft license of Linux itself provides the opportunity to keep the core operating system of Android liberated.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a bit flaccid. Google and the Android platform has equally went out of the way to isolate the platform from the effects of the GPL. In fact, I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure one of the reasons Bionic (the Android libc) exists is specifically to limit the impact of GPL code on the platform. Android&amp;#x27;s use of Linux is basically a historical accident, and painting it as some kind of concerted effort towards software freedom isn&amp;#x27;t a compelling point.&lt;p&gt;TL;DR - you need to relax. Apple releasing open-source code is a good thing. We can now all benefit from using this code. Maybe you&amp;#x27;d prefer if it were copylefted, but it&amp;#x27;s not – it&amp;#x27;s still good, and painting it as an evil move against software freedom seems like a bit of a mental stretch.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>matthewmacleod</author><text>&lt;i&gt;If LLVM and Swift are GPL&amp;#x27;d they can&amp;#x27;t develop additions to them, ship them on their Macbooks, and not publish the changes to the rest of the internet.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is true if you redistribute the GPL code of others.&lt;p&gt;However, as the copyright holders, Apple are free to release their code under whatever license they wish, or to refrain from releasing it. They can ship it on MacBooks, and are under no obligation to release the source code.&lt;p&gt;You could argue that they couldn&amp;#x27;t accept GPLd submissions anyway, but since they&amp;#x27;d require copyright assignment in any case it&amp;#x27;s a moot point.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Greet Apple&apos;s Swift 2.0 With Open Arms?</title><url>http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/15/apple-is-not-our-friend.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nickysielicki</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;EDIT: I&amp;#x27;m wrong see below&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m a bit unclear what you seem to think is lost under these circumstances versus copylefted software. Let&amp;#x27;s say Apple released Swift under the GPL. They would still be free to do all of the things you describe.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely not. GPL means anything you put out must be published. If LLVM and Swift are GPL&amp;#x27;d they can&amp;#x27;t develop additions to them, ship them on their Macbooks, and not publish the changes to the rest of the internet.&lt;p&gt;This is what&amp;#x27;s happening right now with LLVM.</text></item><item><author>matthewmacleod</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Imagine Swift becomes a wild success … Will you brush it off again as an understandable move by Apple?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a bit unclear what you seem to think is lost under these circumstances versus copylefted software. Let&amp;#x27;s say Apple released Swift under the GPL. They would still be free to do all of the things you describe.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;So as a developer right now, given that you have a plethora of open tools and an open ecosystem, why would you choose to use a language where a company has the opportunity to manipulate you in the future?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is, as above, no different from the copyleft case.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;So as a developer right now, given that you have a plethora of open tools and an open ecosystem, why would you choose to use a language where a company has the opportunity to manipulate you in the future?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s extraordinary difficult to argue that Apple would be in a position to manipulate me as a developer if I started using Swift. For one thing, once the code is open-source – that&amp;#x27;s it. I can continue developing software using that language. If Apple decide not to release new features, and instead keep them proprietary, then the community is free to fork development.&lt;p&gt;More importantly, if it&amp;#x27;s important to members of the free software community, they are &lt;i&gt;entirely able to develop capital-F-free software on top of Apple&amp;#x27;s release!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m really thankful for copyleft licensing and the amazing tools it&amp;#x27;s given us. But it&amp;#x27;s a vary complex issue, and I just don&amp;#x27;t agree that release under a license with &lt;i&gt;fewer restrictions&lt;/i&gt; is necessarily a bad thing!</text></item><item><author>nickysielicki</author><text>Imagine Swift becomes a wild success; everyone&amp;#x27;s writing everything in Swift. What will your reaction be when Apple again makes a &amp;quot;legitimate business decision&amp;quot; and leverages the success to the benefit of their company and implicitly disadvantages other platforms? Maybe they double up on Swift support on Mac and start shipping additional features first for LLVM&amp;#x2F;Clang on OSX. Will you brush it off again as an understandable move by Apple?&lt;p&gt;I think you would. I certainly wouldn&amp;#x27;t be happy with Apple for doing it, but I would definitely say it&amp;#x27;s understandable. Like you&amp;#x27;re saying, they&amp;#x27;re a business, they make business decisions.&lt;p&gt;The point I&amp;#x27;m trying to make there is any problems that arise from this fall squarely on the developers choosing to embrace this new language. I&amp;#x27;m not writing this comment to convince Apple to act differently. The original post didn&amp;#x27;t make those arguments to Apple. This is all directed at developers, trying to change THEIR actions and feelings.&lt;p&gt;So as a developer right now, given that you have a plethora of open tools and an open ecosystem, why would you choose to use a language where a company has the opportunity to manipulate you in the future? Why write libraries and provide support and do this work for free for Apple? Writing libraries for the benefit of the community provides some security in that no one except the community stands to benefit from it. You can go to sleep happy knowing that you&amp;#x27;re helping out your fellow devs.&lt;p&gt;Writing for the benefit of a community that is paired with executive power means that it can all be swept from under you. Your library is still helping your fellow dev, but it helps the fellow dev with OSX 10.12 more. Now you&amp;#x27;ve contributed to Apple&amp;#x27;s bottom line. Was that your intention?&lt;p&gt;I completely disagree with other commenters in this thread that we have some obligation to be thankful for companies for putting out things with strings attached. I&amp;#x27;m not a spoiled brat for not liking everything. These companies would be absolutely nothing without their developers. It&amp;#x27;s time the community sticks together and realizes the power they have. It&amp;#x27;s not unthankful to demand more. It&amp;#x27;s dangerous to get swept up in the excitement of new languages and to assume good graces. Look no further than what Apple has done to Webkit, LLVM, CUPS and more. First class on OSX, give back only what&amp;#x27;s not newest. Swift will certainly be the same way.</text></item><item><author>matthewmacleod</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s frustrating to see this somewhat blinkered view.&lt;p&gt;Yeah, Apple definitely doesn&amp;#x27;t like copyleft. That&amp;#x27;s okay; lots of people don&amp;#x27;t (especially larger companies – how many large companies actively release GPLd software?). It&amp;#x27;s a legitimate business decision, and there are some good arguments that support it (which you may or may not agree with).&lt;p&gt;The idea that organisations &amp;#x27;owe&amp;#x27; the community copyleft software is therefore a bit foreign to me.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;We&amp;#x27;ll likely see pieces of Swift 2.0 thrown over the wall. But the best stuff will be kept proprietary.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a bit of a weird assumption. Apple&amp;#x27;s statement was the the Swift code and standard library would be open-sourced. What is the &amp;#x27;best stuff&amp;#x27; that we&amp;#x27;re not going to get?&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Apple&amp;#x27;s not-yet-executed move to liberate some of the Swift 2.0 code seems a tactical stunt to win over developers who currently prefer the relatively more open nature of the Android&amp;#x2F;Linux platform … the copyleft license of Linux itself provides the opportunity to keep the core operating system of Android liberated.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a bit flaccid. Google and the Android platform has equally went out of the way to isolate the platform from the effects of the GPL. In fact, I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure one of the reasons Bionic (the Android libc) exists is specifically to limit the impact of GPL code on the platform. Android&amp;#x27;s use of Linux is basically a historical accident, and painting it as some kind of concerted effort towards software freedom isn&amp;#x27;t a compelling point.&lt;p&gt;TL;DR - you need to relax. Apple releasing open-source code is a good thing. We can now all benefit from using this code. Maybe you&amp;#x27;d prefer if it were copylefted, but it&amp;#x27;s not – it&amp;#x27;s still good, and painting it as an evil move against software freedom seems like a bit of a mental stretch.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>GFK_of_xmaspast</author><text>LLVM is not GPL&amp;#x27;d because the FSF didn&amp;#x27;t want it.</text></comment>