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Just to take the wind out of the sails of the first paragraph:

http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#patents

LLVM has a developer patent policy, and Apple will adhere to it the same as anyone else or the code won't be part of LLVM. Chris Lattner knows this. LLVM has a foundation with directors that aren't Apple.

So yeah, there goes that argument.

As for the rest - Bradley acts like the free software advocates were much better at open development or not throwing stuff over the wall.

Emacs, for a very long time (and other fsf projects the same), had secret pre-tests. If you shared the ftp info with others and they found out, they'd remove your access.

Part of the EGCS/GCC split was precisely over the fact that GCC was not openly developed.

Their projects still aren't all developed in a very open or free manner.

Of course, Bradley instead concentrates on the higher level view of what this will do to programming language development , partially because Free Software has such a poor history at the lower level on this one, and partially, i believe, because the details just don't matter to him if the concept is achieved :P.

The short version of that is: I'd love to see the free software folks get their own house in great order before continuously calling everyone else out.

It's not that they are wrong in a lot of ways (except about the patent stuff), but the details matter, and they have a very poor history on those details. They stand nearly zero chance of convincing anyone when all that happens is to stand on a soapbox and scream about how bad everyone else is. I know y'all want to just compete on ideology, but it isn't going to work. Prove it's not just a better ideology, but it leads to better communities, or better projects, or anything.

Otherwise, it's just another political faction that nobody is going to care about.




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