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Comment by almostgotcaught | Hacker News Reader

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I don't see instructions to fork LLVM on the "Integrating LLVM into your project" page: https://llvm.org/docs/Projects.html

You should fork it if you're doing development work like Apple, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc because that's how open source works, but it's not necessary if you're using the tooling as-is.

It might be helpful to consider how other people will read your comments before getting defensive next time. It wasn't until I looked at your links that I understood what you were trying to say because it's not the meaning most people are going to assume.

This depends a lot on what you're doing with LLVM. If you are just using LLVM as a code generation backend for your language frontend, you generally do not need an LLVM fork.

For example, while Rust does have an LLVM fork, it just exists for tighter control over backports, not because there are any modifications to LLVM.

Would be great to see any confirmation.

https://github.com/intel/llvm

https://github.com/iree-org/llvm-project

https://github.com/ROCm/llvm-project

https://github.com/apple/swift-llvm

https://github.com/dotnet/llvm-project

https://github.com/espressif/llvm-project

should i keep going?

You should have ordered them differently to not distract from your point: That most LLVM-based compilers do eventually need to write patches for it and usually ship them before upstreaming, they can't just use an existing release. I at least have always found that to be true to build such compilers from source.

Three of those are forks to upstream back to the main repo, and one of them is dead.

> Three of those are forks to upstream back to the main repo

and you think the patches they upstream they don't use in the meantime...?

> and one of them is dead.

yes because the currently used fork isn't public obviously

Checking the first one

> Intel staging area for llvm.org contribution. Home for Intel LLVM-based projects.

Seems like they use it to contribute to upstream which is business as usual?

what exactly do you people think a fork is? hint: it's not a complete forever and ever and ever divergence.

Edit: the concept of fork and hard fork are distinct. I specifically used the word fork

Fork without context usually means a hard fork.

Oh interesting I didn't realize the role of adjectives has changed recently. So war and my nuclear war mean the opposite things now. I'll keep that in mind.

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