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Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

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Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#111

Post by mcphage »

chc wrote: post #74
mcphage wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement: > Nobody at Apple has expressed any intention to make Swift free. Zero. Zip. Chris Lattner: > "You can imagine that many of us want [Swift] to be open source and part of llvm" So Chris Lattner (who works for Apple) has stated that he, and many others at Apple, want to make it open source. I'm not sure what else you're looking for.

I want a Tesla. Based on me saying this, do you think that I'm definitely going to buy a Tesla? Well, I am not, because I haven't got the money. A statement of personal desire on the part of one individual is different from a statement of intention or interest on the part of Apple. Lattner specifically says alongside his personal desire that they haven't even considered open-sourcing Swift. So what am I looking for?…

> A statement of personal desire on the part of one individual is different from a statement of intention or interest on the part of Apple.

I agree, but you asked for the former.

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#112

Post by vtbassmatt »

MCRed wrote: post #19
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.

Seems likely. It's not like objective-c is closed to other people, and the extensions to Objective-C that Apple has made are open. Swift and Objective-C are based on LLVM, which Apple has supported since very early on, and which is open sourced itself. It would be kinda out of character for Apple (the real Apple not the boogeyman Apple which is mostly a straw man) to not release a programming language as open source.…

Your analogy to IE and Netscape Navigator confuses me. Navigator cost money and was the dominant browser; IE came along later, was free, and became dominant. Eventually Netscape lowered the price to zero but by then was effectively out of business. From where I'm sitting, Android is more like the "IE" to Apple's "Navigator", only it doesn't look like Apple's going to go out of business any time soon.

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#113

Post by jagger27 »

norcimo5 wrote: post #75
jagger27 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. Unfortunately OpenSwift appears to be taken [0]. It would have been the obvious choice. [0] http://sourceforge.net/projects/openswift/

How about "Veloces" (Latin for 'swift")?

As long as you and everyone else pronounces it correctly as "veh-lawk-ays". Personally I'd go for "Velocitas" (swiftness).

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#114

Post by valarauca1 »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #104
valarauca1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not like objective-c is closed to other people, and the extensions to Objective-C that Apple has made are open. When Objective-C was developed in 86 it was closed source. NeXT purchased it (in 88, still closed), and planed to keep it closed source. Orginal Obj-C would be parsed into byte code to be compiled by the GCC, not directly parsed. GNU didn't agree with this (adding a way to compile byte code). Eventual…

As the Clang/LLVM toolchain removes "FSF lawsuits" from possible things that could happen. That toolchain nonetheless appears to be open sourced, so I'm not convinced it stands as evidence that Apple won't open source Swift. (Not that it stands as evidence that they will, either.) Wikipedia's telling of GNU and Objective-C's history sounds somewhat less combative than yours. According to Richard Stallman, "NeXT propo…

The tool chain was developed in academia for 6 years before they adopted [1]. With an incredibly pervasive BSD-esque license [2].

Thus, companies can use the code without giving themselves back. This is why Sony uses BSD based OS on the playstation [3]. Its cheap, they can modify it, and keep what changes they deem necessary.

And yes, I'm aware Apple has given back to the project. But it seems pretty obvious why they don't use the GCC when you consider how hard Apple has tried to purge the GPL from its OS [4]. And the legal battle NeXT had with the FSF/GNU [5].

I stand by, we won't see Apple open source it.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LLVM

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Ope...

[3] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU1MzA

[4] http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C#Popularization_thro...

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#115

Post by jkrems »

chc wrote: post #59
jkrems wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have expressed interest in open-sourcing Swift pretty much immediately after announcing it. Both on Twitter and later (?) on the LLVM mailing list. No official Apple announcement and far from a guarantee that it will happen - but "they have not even expressed an interest" isn't true.

Not unless you've seen something I haven't. Chris Lattner said that although he was personally interested in open-sourcing it, Apple had no intention of ever doing so at that time. To my knowledge, that is the last we ever heard of it

Maybe I'm crazy/misremembering. But other than the "we're focussed on polishing it first" I thought I also read something reaffirming an interest (not from Apple officially but from one of the devs) to open source. And the LLVM mailing list post also contains a pretty clear "a lot of us really want to open source this" statement. Maybe this is just a misunderstanding: I didn't mean to imply that Apple expressed "an interest" as in "officially announced an interest". That would be very un-Apple-like. They tend to either do or don't. What I meant is that voices out of the project said they'd like to open-source. Which at that level (compiler/low-level) seems to suggest that it's likely. Given Apple's track record in that area / on that level.

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#116

Post by pjmlp »

Igglyboo wrote: post #37
pjmlp wrote: post #25

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.

>Swift only has value with the Mac OS X and iOS ecosystems Which is why they are making an open source version that will have value in all ecosystems.

For those looking for an ML language outside the Apple ecosystem there is OCaml, Haskell, F#, ATS, Rust, Idris, Pure Script, Elm, ...

Swift without Cocoa, UIkit, GCD, Playground, IDE support..., doesn't offer anything better than those MLs.

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#118

Post by zerr »

WoodenChair wrote: post #24

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 sig…

> 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

Not necessary. First names are often used for familiarity, and it is fine e.g. for celebrities. Although, I have no idea who is Chris :)

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#119

Post by zerr »

aral wrote: post #47

Hey folks, just wanted to say that it’s very early days at the moment (as WoodenChair commented) — and we’re changing the button to "Sneak Peek" to reflect this. Poor Greg has been working his fingers off to get it ready (he’s pulled three all-nighters and that can’t be healthy so he’s been told in no uncertain terms to get some sleep now) and we should have a running compiler within the week. If any of you want to h…

Why the rush?

Re: Introducing Phoenix, Swift set free

#120

Post by valleyer »

nickm12 wrote: post #87
beltex wrote: post #71

"Guys, feel free to make up your own dragons if you want, but your speculation is just that: speculation. We literally have not even discussed this yet, because we have a ton of work to do to respond to the huge volume of feedback we're getting, and have to get a huge number of things (e.g. access control!) done before the 1.0 release this fall. You can imagine that many of us want it to be open source and part of ll…

I wonder if there is an intentional difference between "You can imagine that many of us want it to be open source" and "As you can imagine, many of us want it to be open source".

I see you're taking his first sentence to heart then.
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