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This feature wasn’t even invented in Swift, the fact that a patent was granted on it shows the sorry state of technical policy making
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To echo a comment in the linked thread: what does the Apache license say about other implementations? If I want to create my own implementation of the Swift compiler, or create another language with optional chaining, would this license protect me? Or does it only protect the use of this implementation?
Well, given that Rust and C# also have these features I think the likelihood that the patent is upheld is unlikely. I guess they could threaten you with it since lawyers are expensive, but it seems silly to me.
https://therealdanvega.com/blog/2013/08/20/groovys-null-safe...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenmcbride1/2019/01/21/the-...
Maybe the rescue plan is to become a patent troll?
These patents seem to be a countermeasure against patent trolls, since the code uses the Apache license. Quoting from link: > Apache license gives the right to use patents required to use the code (assuming the original author had those rights), and the code implementing optional chaining in the compiler is Apache licensed. So, the only thing Apple having a patent on optional chaining does is to stop frivolous suits…
This feature wasn’t even invented in Swift, the fact that a patent was granted on it shows the sorry state of technical policy making
I think American patents changed some time in the past decade to match how they’re done in the rest of the world; The first person to patent the thing gets the rights completely regardless of the time or person the implementation is associated with.
This feature wasn’t even invented in Swift, the fact that a patent was granted on it shows the sorry state of technical policy making
I think American patents changed some time in the past decade to match how they’re done in the rest of the world; The first person to patent the thing gets the rights completely regardless of the time or person the implementation is associated with.
> This is very disturbing. It's like Apple has gone insane. Computer languages are not supposed to be owned by any company. We learned this mistake with Java and APIs. Computer languages are supposed to be a part of the Commons, owned by everyone for the benefit of humanity, not the benefit of a greedy corporation. Who "learned that"? The public (devs, etc) already knew and wanted that. Companies however, have been p…
Can you imagine every Swift app has to be deleted because of a competing patent claim?
Anyone remember LZW? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lempel–Ziv–Welch#Patents
The patent (9,952,841) seems to be about the language swift.
There is mention about language features describing the language, but I don't see a specific claim to any of them.
"optionals chaining" (the feature that everyone is alarmed about) is just one of the features listed. Other features mentioned include an "IDE" and "unicode" as well as support for "functions".
Am I missing something? Where is the claim on an specific language characteristic?