Comment thank you for venting (Score 1) 157
Two points:
Apple has always had offensive business practices, and this little PR move to stem the flood of development rushing away from their platform doesn't change that.
It's not as simple as a PR move. OS X Server depends on code protected by the GPL, among other licenses. The company is legally bound to release its changes. They could have done so all but silently; instead they chose to make it a public commitment, and to open-source far more than they had to (e.g, the decade of changes made to Mach since NeXT got off the ground).
If they were interested in the values or real benefits of any "openness" they wouldn't have killed Rhapsody on x86. (Which rocked as beta 1)
It rocks as a final product, too. It just happens to rock on the cool blue and white '99 G3.
Take a look at Apple's published statements to the SEC, and examine how much of Apple's revenue comes from software, vs how much comes from hardware. Jobs' decision to eliminate clone licenses was a hard call, but it was a business decision based on Apple's inability to continue to pay its engineers if it became a software company.
If its flagship products ran on commodity Intel hardware, Apple would become a software company, as most of its revenues would go away. Then it would either become a bankrupt company, or a division of AOL.
I don't think the doctrine of "openness" serves anyone if causes its proponents to go bankrupt.
bumppo
Apple has always had offensive business practices, and this little PR move to stem the flood of development rushing away from their platform doesn't change that.
It's not as simple as a PR move. OS X Server depends on code protected by the GPL, among other licenses. The company is legally bound to release its changes. They could have done so all but silently; instead they chose to make it a public commitment, and to open-source far more than they had to (e.g, the decade of changes made to Mach since NeXT got off the ground).
If they were interested in the values or real benefits of any "openness" they wouldn't have killed Rhapsody on x86. (Which rocked as beta 1)
It rocks as a final product, too. It just happens to rock on the cool blue and white '99 G3.
Take a look at Apple's published statements to the SEC, and examine how much of Apple's revenue comes from software, vs how much comes from hardware. Jobs' decision to eliminate clone licenses was a hard call, but it was a business decision based on Apple's inability to continue to pay its engineers if it became a software company.
If its flagship products ran on commodity Intel hardware, Apple would become a software company, as most of its revenues would go away. Then it would either become a bankrupt company, or a division of AOL.
I don't think the doctrine of "openness" serves anyone if causes its proponents to go bankrupt.
bumppo
