What&#x27;s the relevant definition of &quot;owned&quot; here? As long as Apple can modify LLVM however it wants, and as long as it&#x27;s sure no corporate actor can restrict access rights to it in the future, it effectively owns it, altough not exclusively.<p>Having exclusive rights on a strategic business brick is important when this brick is enough to give someone else a stronghold on the whole vertical market. Although having a good compilers is one of the many requirements in Apple&#x27;s business model, it&#x27;s neither the defining feature, nor what competitors miss in order to threaten Apple.<p>So yes, in this context, Apple non-exclusively owns LLVM.