181–190 of 223 posts
Let's see if I have this right: Apple is patenting concepts in Swift then licensing it under Apache 2 in order to protect users of the language from patent trolls. So they are patenting something for our protection?
It does open the door for gcc to inadvertently develop similar functionality and get sued. Not that there's, afaik, a cleanroom implementation of Swift.
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…
> These patents seem to be a countermeasure against patent trolls. Nope. Prior art is the only protection against patent trolls. Patents are no protection at all against trolls because patent trolls are unlikely to infringe any of your patents, due to their sole business being patent litigation. There are two reasons for Apple to get these patents: defensive and offensive patent litigation against other companies in…
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…
I make a language with "Apple's" claimed invention. (EDITED)
Apple sues me.
I'm not using Swift, so I don't get rights conferred by the Apache license. I make a language with "Apple's" claimed invention. ( EDITED ) Apple sues me.
The patent is about building a compiler out of 2 modular front-ends – each taking an input language (one being an OO language based on C), generating the appropriate IR, and handing the IR to a backend.
It goes on to specify that one of the integrated frontends does more compile-time safety checking, calling out bounds-checking and optionals, and the other doesn't (because it is specifically based on C).
I'm not using Swift, so I don't get rights conferred by the Apache license. I make a language with "Apple's" claimed invention. ( EDITED ) Apple sues me.
No. Did you look at the patent? "Optional chaining" is not one of the patent's claims. The patent is about building a compiler out of 2 modular front-ends – each taking an input language (one being an OO language based on C), generating the appropriate IR, and handing the IR to a backend. It goes on to specify that one of the integrated frontends does more compile-time safety checking, calling out bounds-checking and…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
one thing though, in swift you can actually mutate fields using optional chaining, e.g. person?.name = "Bob". you can't do that in c#. not sure about rust but in scala you would unwrap the optional with a foreach or something.
In Groovy you can mutate through optional (null-safe) chaining, eg: x = [ foo: [ bar: 1] ] x.foo.bar // 1 x.boo?.bar // null because x.boo is null x.boo?.bar = 1 // succeeds even though x.boo is null x.boo // still null
Just to bring clarity on what has been patented on one of the patents: Monad Maybe where Nothing >>= _ = Nothing (Just x) >>= f = f x Those three lines, implementing the Maybe Monad/bind operation, are commonplace in all functional languages. (They just called it Optional instead of Maybe and "chaining" instead of "bind"/>>=) ( https://docs.swift.org/swift-book/LanguageGuide/OptionalChai... ) EDIT: The second one lin…
Rust does this as a core idiom. I don’t think this will work. Edit wrt edit in parent: all three of these claims apply to Rust.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Technically speaking, C# does not have optionals so I don't think it can be argued that C# violates the patent unless it's generalized to include null propagation which operates on reference types.
C# Nullable is optional for all purposes (a struct with .Value and .HasValue), it's just restricted to value types.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it definitely applies protections to the entire Apache licensed work. People can fork it and make changes, rename the project and they will retain their patent license as long as they abide by the terms of the license.
but what about reimplementing a compiler from scratch without reusing any of Apple's code? It wouldn't fall under a definition of Derivative Work under terms of Apache 2.0 then
Apache license don’t say anything about clean room reimplementation under other licence because it’s a tricky subject beyond the scope of the license. I personally think that if someone reimplement Swift, name it Schwift, guarantee it’s 200% faster (for some reasons), and then sell commercial licence of that it should be sued (but with such business plan I believe he’ll go bankrupt first).
Apple logically won’t comment on what they will do in case of a "clean room" implementation because they have zero interest in anybody doing such a thing.
And actually nobody have any interest in such a monstrosity (except maybe for theological reasons?). The project is goddam Appache2, fork it if you want, but spending any second trying to reimplement years of works is a total waste of time. Want to start something from scratch? Fine but do something original. Want to improve swift ecosystem ? Fine but work on the main project or on a clean fork!