Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft [LWN.net]

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 25, 2014 20:21 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft by coriordan
Parent article: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

You miss one very important point. Neither Apple nor IBM are *software* companies. Apple sells hardware - why should they care that a software company takes their innovations closed - so long as it sells more hardware.

Likewise IBM is a service company nowadays - if their innovations are taken closed but it lets IBM sell more hardware, then fine. And if IBM get paid to create these innovations as a "work for hire", then equally fine.

This "free/open" kerfuffle has most relevance when we're worried about software companies. As far as hardware or service companies are concerned, I think we've won the argument - write the software, plonk it in the public domain, and walk away.

We just need to win that argument in Hollywood, and the big software companies are toast.

Cheers,
Wol

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Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 25, 2014 22:27 UTC (Sat) by jwakely (subscriber, #60262) [Link] (3 responses)

I think coriordan's point is not that an Apple or an IBM would be worried about another company taking their innovations closed, because that presumes the innovation was in the open in the first place. I think his point is that if their innovations never make it to the open version and are only in their own closed version, which only runs on their own hardware, then you have an incentive to buy their hardware to get their super-duper-improved version of llvm.

e.g. if the Xcode compiler has clever optimisations not available in the upstream llvm then that is an incentive to use Xcode, which is only available for Apple hardware, so it sells more Apple hardware. If the clever optimisation is in upstream llvm then it's available to GNU/Linux users on non-Apple hardware and doesn't help sell Apple hardware.

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 25, 2014 22:48 UTC (Sat) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (2 responses)

That sounds fundamentally the same motivations that drove proprietary UNIX through the '80s and '90s. Just like today every hardware vendor grabs Linux as the first step in getting their widget to market but today, unlike then, there is pressure to push changes upstream, both from the GPL (which is a fantastic license) and from the complexity of maintaining an in-house fork compared to an '80s UNIX.

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 26, 2014 14:35 UTC (Sun) by jwakely (subscriber, #60262) [Link] (1 responses)

> Just like today every hardware vendor grabs Linux as the first step in getting their widget to market

Except Apple :-)

They have a proprietary OS based on FreeBSD (and also iOS, whatever that's based on), and a proprietary compiler based on LLVM, and the rest of the community does not get to enjoy the goodies they add to their proprietary versions.

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 26, 2014 18:12 UTC (Sun) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

To be fair Apples code base predates the existence of Linux, being from the 1980s, and they just did what many did before Linux which was to grab BSD off the shelf and start with that.