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Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

ind.ie

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Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#21

Post by MCRed »

electic wrote: post #18

Seeing more and more thoughts be published like this in the last few months. It seems developer discontent might be growing with Apple.

This is the kind of unfounded complaints we've seen from people about Apple going back at least to the 1980s. More recently, there was an "outcry" when Apple waited a few months to release the latest version of OS X as open source after releasing the retail version.

Truth is, Apple is pretty good about open sourcing their stuff, especially when compared to their peers (Microsoft, Oracle). But that doesn't fit the "Google good, Apple bad" narrative that is popular in some circles.

It's important to remember that Android being "open" is googles attempt to commoditize a competitors product... you don't see google open sourcing core technologies related to source.

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#24

Post by WoodenChair »

A few thoughts:

- Browsing the source code directory, this is very very "early stage" at best and perhaps too early to warrant a "Get It Now" link

- There is an alternative implementation of Swift for the interested, although not open source, being developed by RemObjects: http://www.remobjects.com/elements/silver/

- Apple should definitely open source Swift, but I doubt this kind of pressure is going to have any significant sway on their decision one way or another. When in the past did developer pressure influence any of their major strategic decisions?

- Referring to Richard Stallman as "Richard", Steve Jobs as "Steve" and Chris Lattern as "Chris" in the letter comes off as a bit sarcastic/snippy in tone

- I don't believe Apple is promoting Swift to encourage lock-in anymore than Apple promoted Objective-C to encourage lock-in; as others here have stated I think the author misunderstands Apple's business model/philosophy

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#25

Post by pjmlp »

I really don't get why people stress over this.

Swift only has value with the Mac OS X and iOS ecosystems, specially as a mean to drag Objective-C developers into the FP world.

There are so many open source languages in the ML family, a few of them are even used in the industry for several years now. Just go and join one of those projects.

They will appreciate any help they can get.

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#26

Post by k-mcgrady »

chc wrote: post #10
k-mcgrady wrote: post #3

Aren't they probably just holding off on open sourcing it until...it's finished. I know they've just shipped '1.0' but I think they're still making pretty big changes.

What's the last programming language you can think of that was really "finished" in any sense besides "shipped an X.0 version"? "When it's completely finished" is essentially synonymous with "when it's dead."

I understand that but it's only been available to the public for a few months. Apple were likely focussed completely on getting it ready for dev to use in iOS 8. That's where all their man power was. Give them some time.

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#28

Post by exelius »

Um, I actually disagree with the author's assertion that Swift is designed to make it harder to co-develop iOS and Android apps. If anything, Swift's syntax and object model are more similar to Java than Objective-C was, which should make it easier to write portable code.

I also disagree with the author's entire premise, because Apple open sources a lot more than its competitors do. Like, a whole lot more. [1] You can download the source for the entire OS X kernel.

I believe Swift will eventually be open sourced. It would fit entirely within Apple's strategy to do so: they like to open source foundational technologies, while keeping the libraries and proprietary features the build on top of them to themselves.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/opensource/

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#29

Post by chc »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #26
chc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the last programming language you can think of that was really "finished" in any sense besides "shipped an X.0 version"? "When it's completely finished" is essentially synonymous with "when it's dead."

I understand that but it's only been available to the public for a few months. Apple were likely focussed completely on getting it ready for dev to use in iOS 8. That's where all their man power was. Give them some time.

It's been 33 days since iOS 8 came out. It takes 30 seconds to tweet "Hey, we have some cleaning up to do before we open up Swift, but it's coming some time in the next two years!" They have not even expressed an interest in open-sourcing it. Any thought of Apple open-sourcing Swift at this point is pure fantasy, so the suggestion that we "give them some time" doesn't make any sense to me.

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#30

Post by misnome »

akbar501 wrote: post #27
spdegabrielle wrote: post #2

I can't find a license?

https://source.ind.ie/project/phoenix/blob/master/LICENSE

Right, added likely in response to this post.

https://source.ind.ie/project/phoenix/commit/4fc86be27e05662...

Thrown GPL on it, which doesn't exactly come across as considered - aren't a lot of Apples contributions to and development of Clang - including of course the objective c frontent, under the BSD-alike licence that it shares with LLVM?

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