Unix/FreeBSD vs. Apple/Mac

[masterchef341]

Again, it sounds like you have some expectation of this company which is far above and beyond their actual obligation.

The primary purpose of open sourcing the code is precisely as I stated before. It's primarily for academic study, peer review, suggestions.

Apple has no obligation to give you their complete car plan.

I don't need to ask Red Hat what THEY meant by open source. I already know what open source actually means.

All in all, the big disconnect with you seems to be what with what open source means. You seem to take that like some sort of banner of obligation of every entity to commit all software efforts towards open source. Where did you get that idea?

[weinter]

Yea right...
Continuing insisting that "you are expecting it wrong" isn't going to convince anyone about the opensource nature.
It is like saying Democratic Republic of Congo is Democratic.

[Generic User #2]

are you actually a programmer? cause you sound like you expect everything to be 'copypasta.'

I'll say this much about opensource vs closedsource in terms of what actually matters: products [that are used by actual people].

closed-source tends to produce better consumer products(photoshop vs GIMP*); whereas open-source tends to produce more secure applications(think servers...).

*please don't ever bother claiming this is a contest; GIMP is alright, but it keeps its namesake when placed against photoshop

ps, open-source itself has NOTHING to do with money(or even working products for that matter). It just means that I should be able to copy-paste your source code. Licenses...now THOSE have to do money.

[debguy]

Originally Posted by masterchef341

Again, it sounds like you have some expectation of this company which is far above and beyond their actual obligation.

Of course I do! They don't just use OS software, they also make marketing with that. So they should mean it when they say they support OS.
But actually supporting OS is more than just sticking to the licenses. It means to give back as much to the comunity as you can. And that doesn't even mean you'll have to do a lot of work. Just save all your source code on a publicly accessible FTP server (or better: hire some student to set up a git repository).

Apple does no such thing. Therefore I must assume that they're not really interested in OS. They just want to take the advantages of it without letting others take advantage of the work they are doing. Honestly, Apple's politics is one of the reasons why I favour the GPL over the BSDL.
If you want an example of how Apple would deal with that topic if they actually meant it, have a look at Red Hat and CentOS/Scientific, just like weinter suggested.

[masterchef341]

Originally Posted by debguy

Of course I do! They don't just use OS software, they also make marketing with that. So they should mean it when they say they support OS.
But actually supporting OS is more than just sticking to the licenses. It means to give back as much to the comunity as you can. And that doesn't even mean you'll have to do a lot of work. Just save all your source code on a publicly accessible FTP server (or better: hire some student to set up a git repository).

Apple does no such thing. Therefore I must assume that they're not really interested in OS. They just want to take the advantages of it without letting others take advantage of the work they are doing. Honestly, Apple's politics is one of the reasons why I favour the GPL over the BSDL.
If you want an example of how Apple would deal with that topic if they actually meant it, have a look at Red Hat and CentOS/Scientific, just like weinter suggested.

what are we arguing about? how much interest apple has in open source? who cares? the OP was asking whether apple reskins open source software and sells it. The answer is that they are transparent about which open source components they use in their operating system. That's it. Period. Done.

[debguy]

Originally Posted by masterchef341

what are we arguing about?

The two of us (and I guess weinter too) are arguing about whether following the licenses to the letters is enough to actually honor the idea of FOSS. You say it is, I disagree.

Originally Posted by masterchef341

how much interest apple has in open source? who cares?

Apparently the OP cares. And quite frankly I care too, because if they had true interest that would support OS a great deal.

Originally Posted by masterchef341

the OP was asking whether apple reskins open source software and sells it. The answer is that they are transparent about which open source components they use in their operating system. That's it. Period. Done.

No, it's not done. naticus asked if that practice of Apple was immoral, he even admitted his post was some sort of a rant. So obviously we're talking about the ethics of the FOSS concept which goes beyond license texts. Call it a spirit, a religion or whatever you like, but it's more than plain license texts. These texts are merely a legal expression of that spirit as far as that's possible.
If the question would have been "Does Apple honor the license text?" I'd say, yes they do but I believe the question was "Does Apple honor the FOSS spirit?" and I say no, they don't.

[masterchef341]

I also agree that Apple does indeed honor the licenses for all the software it uses, including free and open source software.

I guess that's it, then.

You might as well blame them for not doing enough for supporting genetic therapy research, or cancer research, or space exploration. They don't have any unmet obligations in any of those areas either.

[ThinkRob]

Originally Posted by debguy

But actually supporting OS is more than just sticking to the licenses. It means to give back as much to the comunity as you can. And that doesn't even mean you'll have to do a lot of work. Just save all your source code on a publicly accessible FTP server (or better: hire some student to set up a git repository).

Apple does no such thing. Therefore I must assume that they're not really interested in OS. They just want to take the advantages of it without letting others take advantage of the work they are doing. Honestly, Apple's politics is one of the reasons why I favour the GPL over the BSDL.
If you want an example of how Apple would deal with that topic if they actually meant it, have a look at Red Hat and CentOS/Scientific, just like weinter suggested.

Really?

How about employing full time developers to work on the WebKit engine and providing sponsorship for the project as a whole? How about releasing the parts of WebKit that weren't forked from KHTML (and thus that they were under no legal obligation to release?)

How about developing, releasing, and supporting ZeroConf, complete with buildable, usable open source implementations?

How about releasing ALAC as open source despite being under no obligation to do so?

How about releasing Grand Central Dispatch (aka. libdispatch) under an Apache license, again voluntarily?

How about employing Clang/LLVM developers full-time?

How about sponsoring CUPS development, and employing (again, full-time) the CUPS author? They purchased the entire source base, yet have kept it under the original open source license. They could have closed it -- source ownership would make that totally legal -- yet they haven't.

(Those aren't the only examples, but they are some of the higher-profile ones.)

Now I personally dislike Apple. A lot. I think they are often an aggressive, bellicose force within the tech. industry and that they have acted with malice and prejudice towards their peers in a way that often is to the detriment of users. I think that they have become far, far more of a toxic influence on the personal computing industry than Microsoft ever was, and have done a phenomenal amount to stifle the development of competing technologies and to hinder improvement in a number of market segments. They have worsened the user experience of their customers, harmed the general public's understanding of a number of key computing concepts, and have abused the patent and trademark systems to a phenomenal extent.

But that doesn't change the fact that they contribute a lot to the open source world, even when not legally obligated to do so. In many, many cases they've gone above and beyond what is required of them, and have done so in a way that directly benefits a large number of Free Software users -- including those that don't own any Apple products.

And that's commendable.

[debguy]

How about releasing the whole OSX code under a free license just like Red Hat does with their OS so that others can decide which of it is useful for their projects instead of being limited by Apple's filter in what to release and what not?

What is their reason for keeping things back? Please don't even start to mention business secrets! If you go truly open source there's no reason for that anymore since you'll get as much back from the community as you invest if you have a good product (which Apple apparently has).

[Generic User #2]

do you release your personal finance records? because if you did, any random financial consultant could come along in their free time and provide free advice for you. Do you have something against free advice?

please send a list of all accounts and personal passwords/identity data. I'll be waiting .

EDIT: more seriously, where is your github/svn repo? you sound like a genius and I might be able make use of your code contributions.