Swift 5.5 for FreeBSD.

M

majortom

When Apple first open sourced Swift, someone ported it to FreeBSD. Then,…. Crickets.

In the meantime, Swift has been ported to Windows, Web Assembly, several additional Linux distributions, has received first class AWS Lambda support, and most recently got an official Amazon AWS SDK. Unfortunately, still nothing on FreeBSD. I have several Server Side Swift applications that I would love to host on my own systems, but without a FreeBSD port, I am stuck adding Linux boxes for them. It is beyond my ability to do a port, but it would be nice for there to be one. Am I the only person interested in this? There has been a topic on the Swift forum, to add official FreeBSD support, but there has not been much support from the FreeBSD community for it.

Just wondering if there is something, philosophical or otherwise preventing it from happening?
 
SirDice said:
There was a port for it; lang/swift but it expired because nobody wanted to maintain it.
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Yup, I mentioned that. I am just curious if there is some reason that there seems to be no interest (not even enough to add the request on the Swift Forum to encourage Apple to do it themselves as they have done for several Linux distributions and now Windows)?

There has been quite a lot of progress since Swift 2, especially in making the non-Apple platforms first class citizens in the ecosystem. Again, a simple action that would help would be for FreeBSD people who are interested in having a port, go over the the Swift.org forum and add a post to the request for a FreeBSD port.
 
Ports are a community effort. Ports require a maintainer, somebody willing and able to keep the port in shape and updated. If a port doesn't have a maintainer it will eventually go stale or fail to build. If those build failures happen for long enough without somebody fixing it the port will simply get removed again.
 
SirDice said:
Ports are a community effort. Ports require a maintainer, somebody willing and able to keep the port in shape and updated. If a port doesn't have a maintainer it will eventually go stale or fail to build. If those build failures happen for long enough without somebody fixing it the port will simply get removed again.
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Apple themselves maintain the Ubuntu, Amazon Linux and Windows ports and contribute resources to the Web Assembly version. I understand how ports are maintained by the community here, that is not what I am asking. My question is pretty straight forward: is there some reason there seems to be no interest in Swift from the FreeBSD community? I am not asking why the previous port was removed, or how a new port would be maintained, or even if there are people who could port Swift themselves. If there is interest in using Swift on this platform, I would suggest that people go to the Swift.org forum and add to their request to the list of platforms for Apple to support.

On the other hand, if there is opposition to having Swift on FreeBSD, I would love to understand what it is.
 
SirDice said:
Judging by the old thread (https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/apples-swift-2-is-now-open-source.54270/) there are plenty of people interested.
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We have different definitions of "plenty of people". That thread had 6 people, and twenty messages over a month, six years ago. At least two of the people in the thread either out right opposed it, or were dismissive and one other did not talk about Swift at all, but GnuSTEP. The other thread that talks about it, has people advising the person interested in learning to code that he should learn Ada instead of Swift (among other suggestions). I guess that answers the question.

Thanks for your help. I guess Linux it is.

If anyone is actually interested in encouraging Apple to port to FreeBSD, here is one of the recent threads on the Swift forum requesting it: https://forums.swift.org/t/freebsd-and-swift/13727 Adding names there would be a good start.
 
majortom said:
Thanks for your very helpful suggestion.
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I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic. It certainly was an honest response from my side. Every port of the +30k available ports needs to be maintained by somebody or a group of people. Nothing comes for free - these things take effort. Somebody has to do it - why not be that somebody?
The situation is exactly the same with Linux: Somebody or a group of people has to maintain the swift packages for whatever Linux distribution we're referring to.

Responses to this often include something along the lines of "I don't have the time for that" or "I don't have the knowledge for that". Neither of which are a problem. Firstly, this is an opensource effort. Nobody EXPECTS you to deliver. Secondly, this is a great opportunity to learn. I assure you that the information you'll get from doing something like this is very much worth it's while. Something like "I am the maintainer of X" usually also looks good on a CV in general.
 
jbodenmann said:
I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic. It certainly was an honest response from my side.
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Sorry, in my world an honest response does not start with a statement that one did not bother reading the post to which one was replying.
jbodenmann said:
Every port of the +30k available ports needs to be maintained by somebody or a group of people. Nothing comes for free - these things take effort.
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Yes, every port requires a maintainer. Had you bothered to read either of the posts, you would know that Apple itself supports and maintains the main Linux ports and recently added a Windows port. It is perfectly reasonable for there to be interest in using the Swift compiler, without enough knowledge or interest in being able to port it. You do not even express interest in using the result, just in suggesting that someone else do work.
jbodenmann said:
Somebody has to do it - why not be that somebody?
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For many reasons as I noted in my post, it is beyond my ability.
jbodenmann said:
The situation is exactly the same with Linux: Somebody or a group of people has to maintain the swift packages for whatever Linux distribution we're referring to.
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Again, had you bothered to read the posts, you would know that Apple, a very large company with lots of resources, maintains the Linux and Windows ports. If there was actual interest in this community in having a port (which, given that the only response to this post was two people neither of whom expressed any personal interest in the product but did express an interest in explaining process, it seems clear there is not), Apple would likely maintain this version as well.
jbodenmann said:
Responses to this often include something along the lines of "I don't have the time for that" or "I don't have the knowledge for that". Neither of which are a problem.
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My reason for wanting Swift on FreeBSD is to avoid the time and effort needed to learn Linux as an end user. The response that the best way to do that is learn to be a developer and as a first project, tackle porting a compiler and a set of tools to another platform, seems like a complete mismatch. It is the the equivalent of responding to an inquiry if there is interest in having the City extend a bus line to a neighborhood, with the suggestion that one run one's own transportation service starting with building one's own buses from scratch.
jbodenmann said:
Firstly, this is an opensource effort. Nobody EXPECTS you to deliver. Secondly, this is a great opportunity to learn. I assure you that the information you'll get from doing something like this is very much worth it's while. Something like "I am the maintainer of X" usually also looks good on a CV in general.
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Glad you are looking out for my career future. If I was worried about this from a CV standpoint, learning to use Linux, the dominant OS and Cloud hosting platform, would be way more valuable than being the maintainer of an open source port on FreeBSD.
 
Apple won't maintain a FreeBSD port, never. What you could expect from them is to upstream changes necessary for correct building and execution on FreeBSD. But this would require someone to do these changes first (and, well, creating a port), a few people begging on some forum definitely won't do.

So yes, this is just about the fact that you want to have a port. DIY is the only sane answer to it. As long as there's nobody wanting it and "just doing it", it won't happen. And indeed, it's perfectly possible to just learn what you need to do it (e.g. the FreeBSD Porter's Handbook is top notch documentation). The only question remaining would be: do you want it enough to invest that time and effort…
 
Zirias said:
Apple won't maintain a FreeBSD port, never. What you could expect from them is to upstream changes necessary for correct building and execution on FreeBSD. But this would require someone to do these changes first (and, well, creating a port), a few people begging on some forum definitely won't do.

So yes, this is just about the fact that you want to have a port. DIY is the only sane answer to it. As long as there's nobody wanting it and "just doing it", it won't happen. And indeed, it's perfectly possible to just learn what you need to do it. The only question remaining would be: do you want it enough to invest that time and effort…
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I just find it funny, that not one person who has responded to this thread has expressed interest in using Swift on FreeBSD (the actual question being asked), but all have tried to explain why someone else should spend energy on maintaining it.

Even if I could do it, I have seen zero interest in it. Why would I bother doing a port in which no one has expressed any interest.

Glad you know what Apple will or will not do. I should have just asked you first.

You are completely correct that if "only a few people" ask for it, Apple will not care, and since even on this forum there is no expressed interest, it seems likely that the few who have posted on the Swift forum, are the only ones interested.

Thanks again for your help.
 
And if hundreds would ask, Apple still wouldn't maintain a "FreeBSD port". That would require them to do/submit commits to FreeBSD's ports tree. Yep, you should have asked me first, glad you're wiser now.

majortom said:
I just find it funny, that not one person who has responded to this thread has expressed interest in using Swift on FreeBSD, but all have tried to explain why someone else should spend energy on maintaining it.
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As for me, I don't think you should anything. Probably nobody here does. I'm also not interested in swift. You're the one interested, you have to know yourself how strong that interest is.
 
eternal_noob said:
Who uses Swift anyway? I mean, there's C/C++. There's no need for obscure language compilers in FreeBSD.
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Well, I guess there's no pressing need to have an implementation of CBM BASIC V2 in the ports either 😏

It's simple as that, if someone wants to have it and creates a port, there will be a port. 🤷‍♂️
 
eternal_noob said:
Who uses Swift anyway? I mean, there's C/C++. There's no need for obscure language compilers in FreeBSD.
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Apparently more people than FreeBSD, as Amazon has just announced a native AWS Swift SDK, and they do not bother to do native FreeBSD support. :)

However, it seems clear that there is no interest from this community. Great that people are super excited about explaining process and their their lack of interest in the product though.
 
majortom said:
I just find it funny, that not one person who has responded to this thread has expressed interest in using Swift on FreeBSD (the actual question being asked), but all have tried to explain why someone else should spend energy on maintaining it.

Even if I could do it, I have seen zero interest in it. Why would I bother doing a port in which no one has expressed any interest.

Glad you know what Apple will or will not do. I should have just asked you first.

You are completely correct that if "only a few people" ask for it, Apple will not care, and since even on this forum there is no expressed interest, it seems likely that the few who have posted on the Swift forum, are the only ones interested.

Thanks again for your help.
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I don't understand the snide attitude here.

You somehow feel entitled to know what none of us can predict or force. If someone wants to actively finish the port (and maintain it), then we'd have a complete port in the tree. If the issue is that significant to you, you can contribute to the port or talk to Apple. Complaining on the forums doesn't help anyone.

majortom said:
Amazon has just announced a native AWS Swift SDK
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And Amazon has made that choice to have an upstream port for Linux; the burden is not on the FreeBSD community. I don't understand why people come here on forums with this BS sentiment.
 
Beastie7 that's the attitude you often see when people start to realize (unpaid) OSS devs just do what they want/need or what they think is cool. That said, I'm amazed there are e.g still people willing to maintain www/chromium – >1000 patches as of now, because Google actively decided they don't care about BSD platforms upstream. But these people probably think it's pretty cool to have one of the major OSS browsers work on FreeBSD…
(and I just suggested yet another patch to make it build on i386 again, cause I think it's somehow cool to have chromium work on my ages-old EeePC)
 
Beastie7 said:
I don't understand the snide attitude here.
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Really simple. I asked a question if there was interest in Swift on FreeBSD. I did not ask a question about how I could become the maintainer of a port, how ports get done, what I could do to polish my CV. I did not get one person who expressed any interest in Swift on FreeBSD, but I did get lots of other responses, none of which have anything to do with my question.
Beastie7 said:
You somehow feel entitled to know what none of us can predict or force.
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Nope. I did not ask how to force Apple to do a port, nor for anyone to predict anything. I simply asked if there was interest.
Beastie7 said:
If someone wants to actively finish the port (and maintain it), then we'd have a complete port in the tree.
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That was not the question I asked. Again, lots of great explanations about the ports process, and none expressing interest in Swift on FreeBSD.
Beastie7 said:
If the issue is that significant to you, you can contribute to the port or talk to Apple. Complaining on the forums doesn't help anyone.
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My original post asked a question "Is there interest?", and made some observations about the current state. I did not complain about anything. If you are not interested in Swift on FreeBSD, why do you think it adds value to this thread to respond on topics not asked?
Beastie7 said:
And Amazon has made that choice to have an upstream port for Linux; the burden is not on the FreeBSD community. I don't understand why people come here on forums with this BS sentiment.
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Not once did I ever suggest that anyone in this community should do anything other than express interest or lack there of in using Swift on FreeBSD. Not one single response to my post responded to the question I asked.

Not one.
 
And still, no port magically appears cause people claim "interest". And that's leaving aside that just a little fraction of FreeBSD users even use this forum, and even fewer will bother looking at this thread…

If you want to have a port, you just do it. You don't ask around first.
 
Zirias said:
Beastie7 that's the attitude you often see when people start to realize (unpaid) OSS devs just do what they want/need or what they think is cool.
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Again, please show in my most, where I asked anyone on here to do any work, to do a port, to do anything other than answer a simple question as to if there is interest.
 
majortom said:
Again, please show in my most, where I asked anyone on here to do any work, to do a port, to do anything other than answer a simple question as to if there is interest.
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Of course there's interest. But not enough of it for a full port to come to fruition. We need more interest points; you can add more points to the interest bucket. Bugzilla is waiting for you. ;)
 
Zirias said:
And still, no port magically appears cause people claim "interest".
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Did I ask for a port to magically appear? Did I ask anyone here to do a port?
Zirias said:
And that's leaving aside that just a little fraction of FreeBSD users even use this forum, and even fewer will bother looking at this thread…
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If the people most interested in FreeBSD (those who read this forum) and those most interested in Swift (those who read the Swift forum) are not motivated enough to even put in the effort of a simple expression of interest, why would anyone bother to do a port?
Zirias said:
If you want to have a port, you just do it. You don't ask around first.
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I want to use a product, if I am the only one interested in it (which it seems clear is the case), there would be no reason to create it.
 
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