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.
Hell, the core of OS X (and iOS) is open source... they've only kept the UI layer closed source (notice Google has not open sourced their platform- map reduce, page rank, everything related to source they kept closed source. They only open sourced Android to try and be the Netscape Navigator to Apples Internet Explorer (iOS). Note that like Android, Navigator was free. Only after netscape ended did it become firefox, which is open source. Google shares android source, but to be official "Android" you have to license it from google, and that comes with a lot of requirements. So, Android is more properly understood as free)
>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).
Eventually The FSF/GNU sued them over this because the Objective-C compiler was simply a modification of the GCC, without code contributed back to the GCC.
Thus, it was open sourced.
As the Clang/LLVM toolchain removes "FSF lawsuits" from possible things that could happen. I think its unlikely we'll see Swift be open sourced.
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 proposed to distribute a modified GCC in two parts and let the user link them. Jobs asked me whether this was lawful. It seemed to me at the time that it was, but since the result was very undesirable for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer. What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges would consider such schemes to be 'subterfuges' and would be very harsh toward them. So I went back to Jobs and said we believed his plan was not allowed by the GPL." There's no suggestion that the FSF ever sued NeXT; Stallman's own description boils down to "We told them they couldn't do that, and they said okay and made it free."
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].
You contradict yourself, saying that Firefox is open source but Android is only "free" since it has trademark restrictions, when Firefox also has trademark restrictions (which is why Debian renamed it Iceweasel).
Android doesn't just have the source available; it fulfills the criteria set both by the OSI and the FSF. That you can't make a derivative and pass it off as the original doesn't change that.
* The object graph model is a problematic abstraction for a lot of what we want to do with a persistence framework: http://inessential.com/2010/02/26/on_switching_away_from_cor... (NSBatchUpdateRequest doesn't do me much good since I can't drop support for iOS 7.x, or 6.x for that matter, yet)
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.
This is strange. You just quoted Chris Lattner saying Apple has no intention of making it open-source, but said it makes me wrong. Indeed, he confirmed that it hadn't even been considered at that time.
> 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 to the effect that Apple will open-source Swift.
> We literally have not even discussed this [open-sourcing] 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.
If you take Chris Lattner at face value, he is saying the reason the discussion hasn't happened is because they have too much other stuff to do (as opposed to Apple being indifferent or opposed to said discussion taking place).
So, again we have Lattner saying that Apple hasn't even considered releasing it as open-source. Still not seeing the part where Apple is going to open-source it.
Also, he said they have stuff to do before the release this fall. That happened, and still not a word about it. I don't see how you can possibly take this "We haven't even talked about it and I can't say when we will" as a declaration that Swift will be open-sourced. It is the opposite. It isn't a firm denial that it will ever be opened up, but it is definitely a denial of any plans to do so.
> I don't see how you can possibly take this "We haven't even talked about it and I can't say when we will" as a declaration that Swift will be open-sourced.
I never, ever said Swift was going to be open-sourced. My only point is that, despite whatever circumstantial evidence you've cited, Apple has not decided that they don't want Swift to be open sourced.
> Also, he said they have stuff to do before the release this fall. That happened, and still not a word about it.
The fall "release" was incomplete - it didn't ship with Swift support for OS X. Presumably they've been spending the time between the fall release of Xcode 6.0 and 6.1 (which came out yesterday) working on finishing the language. Even before 6.0 was officially released they were already releasing developer previews of 6.1.
Like so many people in this thread, you have taken what I said, which is quite simple, and twisted it into something bizarre. I'm simply saying that Apple has not expressed any intention to open-source Swift. Because of this, I think taking it for granted is overly optimistic.
I think we might be in violent agreement, and if I misread your intent I apologize. Nevertheless, whatever Apple's current stance on the matter is, I think we can both agree that they really, really should open-source Swift.
The reason you are getting downvoted (I believe) is that you are posing a false dilemma.[1] It is not the case that Apple is most likely going to leave Swift closed source based on the evidence that we've seen. ALL the evidence we have, as far as swift goes, is that they haven't decided yet, according to Chris' email quote. As others have said, most of Apple's other programming language work has become open source, and I would say that evidence is much stronger than the "evidence" (really lack of evidence one way or the other) that they are going to leave it closed source.
> ALL the evidence we have, as far as swift goes, is that they haven't decided yet, according to Chris' email quote.
Yes, precisely. Apple currently has no intention of open-sourcing Swift. All of the evidence supports precisely what I've been saying. This is why I think it is good to remind them that we want them to decide in the affirmative.
You're picking a pretty fine nit on the meaning of the word 'intention.' I see your point, with the exception that you don't know what Apple's intentions are. We have a few pointers, though. The fact that Chris Lattner and some on his team are interested in open-sourcing it is a good sign. Given his wording, I would even say that he intends to have a discussion about open sourcing it. We have even less evidence that Apple intends to leave Swift forever closed source — it's simply the status quo.
Apple, as a corporate entity, likely has no intention either way right now. Even if it did, Apple rarely broadcasts its intentions. Swift will likely be closed source until suddenly it's not.
They don't need to intend to keep Swift closed forever in order for it to be kept closed forever. It takes an active intention for them to open it up, but not to keep it closed. If they put off making a final decision until the heat death of the universe, it will still never be open-sourced without them ever specifically intending not to.
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.
Hell, the core of OS X (and iOS) is open source... they've only kept the UI layer closed source (notice Google has not open sourced their platform- map reduce, page rank, everything related to source they kept closed source. They only open sourced Android to try and be the Netscape Navigator to Apples Internet Explorer (iOS). Note that like Android, Navigator was free. Only after netscape ended did it become firefox, which is open source. Google shares android source, but to be official "Android" you have to license it from google, and that comes with a lot of requirements. So, Android is more properly understood as free)