Is Apple Now Blocking Contributions To GCC?

[XorEaxEax]

Meh in the end as Clang and LLVM pick up steam, GCC will eventually become a thing of the past which a select few will use. It will be a few years off but it will continue as the FSF keeps tightening the noose on itself.

Well, Clang and LLVM has been around for quite some time now, and A) they are still behind GCC in terms of optimizations B) Apart from Apple, it seems not alot of companies are interested in contributing code to the project. Meanwhile companies have no problem contributing and EVEN assigning copyright over to the GCC project. We're talking companies like IBM, Red Hat, Intel, Novell, etc

LLVM has Apple, are there any others? Do mind I am talking major contributors here not companies just using the product, there's a HUGE difference.

Seems to me big companies find it alot more comfortable contributing to GPL projects than they do to BSD-style licenced projects (like with linux <-> BSD).

As for LLVM/Clang, I love the compiler. Not as good optimizations as GCC (and this won't likely change as GCC is now working hard on polyhedral optimizations while clang/llvm is trying to reach language support maturity) but it is faster in compiling and it has MUCH greater error reporting. Currently I use them both, which one I will use in the future (unless I keep using them both) will be all down to technical details, not if it's GPL or BSD, FSF or Apple. One thing for sure, both will be around.

[Remco]

one thing they can do: change the licence on a whim.

and why should anybody assign copyrights to FSF? What are they doing, besides propaganda and stupid-talk?

No they can't.

Code. Licenses. Legal counseling. Government lobbying. You may want to do some reading.

[chithanh]

one thing they can do: change the licence on a whim.

You are just stating an uninformed opinion, aren't you? If you had actually bothered to educate yourself about the FSF copyright assignment, then you should have known better.

[srg_13]

Keep in mind Clang is mainly a C-compiler family pack for mainly x86 systems. GCC is a compiler collection for tons of languages on tons of platforms. They're kinda similar but Different.

It supports x86_64 and ARM as well...

[TemplarGR]

Some things in life are very funny. One of them, is the way some people defend corporations, countries or even Tyrants, from whom they see no benefit.

In this case, it is obvious that Apple for its own reasons do not want to accept GPLv3 and FSF doesn't accept its code and both of them are fine.

But to see people bashing FSF as greedy made me wonder if i needed to laugh or to cry...

Some of you people really do not know what is good for you. You really do not understand, that even IF FSF was greedy, it would still be for your interest to support them...

FSF is the reason we are all here today on a *nix forum and discuss stuff. Most of us if not for opensource, would have never been in touch with a Unix system.

Even Apple would have a hard time without Opensource.

So FSF is greedy now, just because it wants to protect Opensource's interests?

And Apple, the most closed ecosystem in the World, somehow IS NOT greedy? Are you on drugs?

Too many Apple fanbois in this thread...

[Apopas]

Too many Apple fanbois in this thread...

And this number keeps improving my friend,, not only here but around the world

[RealNC]

TemplarGR, you're totally missing the topic of this thread. What Apple does otherwise is not part of this discussion, only the issue at hand is. Apple's policies are well known. This is about "Apple blocking contributions."

[BlackStar]

TemplarGR, you're totally missing the topic of this thread. What Apple does otherwise is not part of this discussion, only the issue at hand is. Apple's policies are well known. This is about "Apple blocking contributions."

Apple used to contribute code according to FSF's guidelines but they recently changed their policy in order to block those contributions (check the mailing list thread linked in the article).

The title does look accurate.

[milki]

Apart from a few people with reading comprehension difficulties and playing dumb, this thread following cleared up:

* Apple is releasing GCC Objective C code in compliance with the GNU GPL.
* Apple is publishing it on various servers under the GNU GPL.

But:

* Apple no longer honors the practice of surrendering their copyright ownership to the FSF. What has been common practice before.
* The GCC project still could legally use the code, but the FSF is unwilling.

The given rationale is:

* The FSF requires code authorship vacation, because they might want to republish it under a better license somewhen (a better license from the FSF?)

What I don't understand is:

* The GCC code is already published under "GNU GPL v2.1 OR ANY LATER VERSION"

So legally and technically the FSF could already relicense it under the GNU GPLv3. Obviously if the FSF itself relicenses Apples code under the GPLv3, it won't implicitely receive a software patent grant from Apple on their GCC/ObjC extensions.

So, isn't this in effect not a copyright or authorship attribution dispute, but factually about the FSF wanting software patent licenses?

And second, if the FSF so desperately wants copyright forsaking, why do they use the vanilla GPL? Why isn't there a specific FSF-GPL clause attached or simple a FSFL used to enforce it? This whole complaining about established practices seems pointless to me. If they aren't content with the GPL rules alone, why play the game?

[nanonyme]

It supports x86_64 and ARM as well...

x86_64 is mostly a superset of x86 so that's irrelevant, of course it supports that. And as far as ARM "ARM support is mostly feature-complete, but still experimental; it hasn't undergone significant testing". Every other architecture is listed as "some support" or "limited support" or "completely unsupported".

http://clang.llvm.org/docs/UsersManual.html#target_arch