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what does it mean that swift is "open source?"
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I'm not an expert on this but it means that people outside of Apple will now be able to see how the language 'Swift' works and how the code is compiled, which means Swift compilers will be able to be made for pretty much any computer system and operating system. Apple have brought swift to Linux themselves but I expect there'll be third parties working on Swift compilers that work on Windows, etc.
o·pen-source
adjective
Computing
adjective: open-source
What it really means is Apple can't get adoption or doesn't know where to take it so they're going to let the community make it something.
adjective
Computing
adjective: open-source
- denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified.
What it really means is Apple can't get adoption or doesn't know where to take it so they're going to let the community make it something.
"Closed software/source" is when software is created that is private and nobody can look at the source code. Traditionally speaking, software companies usually create closed source code to stop competitors from learning their tricks and making similar systems or getting any ideas.
"Open software/source" is when software is created and anybody can download the source code to either use or change it (according to licenses...). Many of the large internet companies around today pretty much run on open source; the majority of the world's web servers (essentially, the internet) run on open source Linux. It's particularly important for security, too. For example, iMessage is supposedly point-to-point encryption but we have to take Apple's word for this. If Apple made the source code open, all of the security researchers would quickly verify this.
There are pros and cons to each but hopefully that explains it.
"Open software/source" is when software is created and anybody can download the source code to either use or change it (according to licenses...). Many of the large internet companies around today pretty much run on open source; the majority of the world's web servers (essentially, the internet) run on open source Linux. It's particularly important for security, too. For example, iMessage is supposedly point-to-point encryption but we have to take Apple's word for this. If Apple made the source code open, all of the security researchers would quickly verify this.
There are pros and cons to each but hopefully that explains it.
I think Microsoft slipped up a few weeks ago and at an interview said "We're trying to bring Swift to VS Code before launch." So we definitely should be seeing swift on windows soon
I really hope there's a project to get it on the web, that'd be sweet, it's such a pretty language to work with.