[OSX-Users] Re: Apple purging GPL?

[Luke Teacy]

On 30 Aug 2012, at 07:38, "Steve Harris" <swh at me.com> wrote:

>> If Clang can close up the last few optimization differences, smothering GCC is of benefit to everyone. LLVM is the future, and for once it's a future that's an actual freaking improvement.
> 
> Agreed, Clang is already better than GCC overall, in my opinion. We use it on Linux too, for its static analysis abilities. 

Yeah, I do like that fact that error messages are less cryptic with clang than gcc, even when using C++ templates. Would be interesting to see benchmarks comparing optimisation performance though. 

> 
>>> shipping obsolete tools and making it a pain in the ass to upgrade them?
>> 
>> Well, Apple don't need any help there. The package manager for open source software on Mac is...Fink? No, wait, MacPorts. No, wait, Homebrew. Which one's maintained this year? Who knows, but for God's sake don't mix them.
> 
> Homebrew seems to be the one of choice, but I have an old machine with Fink on it and Fink still works fine.

In theory, I think Homebrew should have a bright future. Since its based on git, it should be easier to maintain with community support.

So I guess the message is, even if Apple do purge all GPL packages, it's not necessarily all bad, and there are good alternatives to plug the gaps.

Only danger is, what else does it allow them to do? As much as I love my iOS devices, I'm in no hurray to see it running on my Mac - at least not in a way that prevents me bringing up a bash shell and doing most of the things I can do on Linux.

Luke