Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Because the same also applies to clang, and contrary to what people think, Apple like every other big tech, is only as nice to FOSS as they need to be for their own purposes.

Same applies to all C and C++ compiler vendors, that have replaced their proprietary compilers (there are plenty more than just clang/gcc/msvc), with LLVM.

Such is the freedom of Apache/MIT/BSD style licenses.



Swift's LLVM fork is open-source, just not upstreamed. No Free Software license requires forks to upstream their changes.

https://github.com/swiftlang/llvm-project


Referring to their fork as "private" seems quite misleading then.


Yet you're complaining that they are using the licence exactly as they feel like.


Parent was not complaining. Parent was asking what the rationale is behind maintaining a separate LLVM fork instead of upstreaming and reducing the maintenance burden on Apple engineers.


I would not say its about niceness, its more about necessities. If ya don't own something, the walls are high to have anything changed, naturally. Because it might not be aligned with what the owner has had in it's mind. And you want to move quickly. So you fork and apply your changes. But i also think, in the long run, it hurts, bcs at some point, you forks are too diverged. But so is life.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: