Is Apple worse for open source software than Microsoft?

First of all, I have read quite a few of Mr Otter's articles in the past, and quite frankly I'm disappointed. He has been a very loyal (and unbiased) supporter of FOSS and related technologies in the past. However I cannot help but to agree with the views of folks in this thread that the article might be a bit ill conceived, and possibly not too well researched. Now let me state this upfront, because I know certain of you will think me biased, and I WILL get flamed. I'm posting this reply using a Macbook Pro, which I love, especially because I have not had to reboot it now for more than 40 days, and I can get a full day's work done on a single charge of the battery. I use the machine for both software development and systems testing. That to me is what differentiates Apple. Quality. I made a choice to to purchase their equipment and their operating system, which coincidently relies heavily on many open-source projects, and all the changes that Apple make to these open source projects are available from http://www.opensource.apple.com/ .

I have also in the past, and still currently do, make use of Open Source Software and Operating Systems, and have yet to see the likes of other major Notebook, and PC vendors freely make Linux or BSD drivers available for their equipment. Does that not make them proprietary as well, and stifle innovation? Quite frankly I'm quite disillusioned with the state of the Open Source Movement at present, as it is suffering from way too much in-fighting, and even worse some key maintainers of the Linux Kernel itself have developed quite an enormous chip on their shoulders, and believe that they can just dismiss the average hobbyist or night time kernel hacker trying to help improve their projects. But I digress, this is suppose to be Apple bashing, not FOSS bashing .. :P ...

If Apple want to control the hardware platform and the OS, in order to produce a more stable system, then I'll sacrifice a bit of flex-ability. Besides most enterprise-class vendors have been doing it for years! Think HP with HP-UX on PA-RISC, IBM with AIX on POWER and Sun with Solaris on SPARC. Personally, I like the whole notion of "It just works!"

To that extent, I really hope that Mr Otter will return to producing the more insightful, and balanced articles for which he is known.
 
ph0nix said:
First of all, I have read quite a few of Mr Otter's articles in the past, and quite frankly I'm disappointed. He has been a very loyal (and unbiased) supporter of FOSS and related technologies in the past. However I cannot help but to agree with the views of folks in this thread that the article might be a bit ill conceived, and possibly not too well researched. Now let me state this upfront, because I know certain of you will think me biased, and I WILL get flamed. I'm posting this reply using a Macbook Pro, which I love, especially because I have not had to reboot it now for more than 40 days, and I can get a full day's work done on a single charge of the battery. I use the machine for both software development and systems testing. That to me is what differentiates Apple. Quality. I made a choice to to purchase their equipment and their operating system, which coincidently relies heavily on many open-source projects, and all the changes that Apple make to these open source projects are available from http://www.opensource.apple.com/ .

I have also in the past, and still currently do, make use of Open Source Software and Operating Systems, and have yet to see the likes of other major Notebook, and PC vendors freely make Linux or BSD drivers available for their equipment. Does that not make them proprietary as well, and stifle innovation? Quite frankly I'm quite disillusioned with the state of the Open Source Movement at present, as it is suffering from way too much in-fighting, and even worse some key maintainers of the Linux Kernel itself have developed quite an enormous chip on their shoulders, and believe that they can just dismiss the average hobbyist or night time kernel hacker trying to help improve their projects. But I digress, this is suppose to be Apple bashing, not FOSS bashing .. :P ...

If Apple want to control the hardware platform and the OS, in order to produce a more stable system, then I'll sacrifice a bit of flex-ability. Besides most enterprise-class vendors have been doing it for years! Think HP with HP-UX on PA-RISC, IBM with AIX on POWER and Sun with Solaris on SPARC. Personally, I like the whole notion of "It just works!"

To that extent, I really hope that Mr Otter will return to producing the more insightful, and balanced articles for which he is known.
Click to expand...

Get over yourself dude.
 
Couldn't agree more ph0nix. He seems like a knowledgeable and intelligent geek and kudos to him for his promotion of Linux/FOSS (Tectonic)

I agree with your assessment of Linux and the Open Source movement. They are fractured and lack Apple's focus on simplicity, UI design (it matters!), and user-friendliness. Ultimately this is what has condemned desktop Linux to the small market share it has maintained for a long time, despite the incredible promise we all know it shows.
 
Is Apple worse for open source software than Microsoft? No probably not. But both should take a fair amount of criticism perhaps.

Microsoft doesn't do open source. Their closest thing is to offer an open platform where users pretty much sell their soul when they create an innovative app. Microsoft steals it modifies the code and patents. Kinda like they patented a whole bunch of linux/unix which doesn't belong to them. Blame USPTO

Apple is the same. They pretty much have taken every successful open source piece of software and modified it (albeit slightly) and patented it too. Their win. They have the money. Once again USPTO

I honestly see Apple as one of the most "un-innovative" companies in existence (and for this reason I can't understand why people rant and rave and despise them knowing they've never had the same sort of.. intellectual clout as MS). They're intellectual thugs at best. Their software projects have always come from some other open source party. Their hardware is merely stringing together the latest and greatest around (nothing invented). Is this a bad thing?? No. In actual fact it indirectly points to the success of FOSS. Developers know what they get when they buy into the brand. Forcing them to use C, C++, Obj.C in their IDE etc

Microsoft invents and pushes the boundaries more wrt hardware/software but they are a lot worse/evil. Their megalomaniac world domination seems a little more scarier to me. Nine out of ten pc's :wtf: I mean come on. Why the hell would I want to create FOSS in windows knowing their market domination??!? Wreaks of global corruption & lobbying

So staying in context with the Q: Apple is the result of OSS if anything. Microsoft has done nothing for OSS other than bully, belittle and victimize the community into using their OS. And bully, belittle and victimize the community non-stop.
 
Apple do innovate, in hardware and software. Why else are they so successful? They didn't invent the PC, the MP3 player, or the phone. They just refined it, and made a boatload of money off it! That's innovation, corporate innovation maybe, but innovation! Else everyone else would be doing it too, right?

Apple is the same. They pretty much have taken every successful open source piece of software and modified it (albeit slightly) and patented it too. Their win. They have the money. Once again USPTO
Click to expand...
Care to name an example of this?
Forcing them to use C, C++, Obj.C in their IDE etc
Click to expand...
Oh no, standardization! Why?? Why not complexity!?
 
ph0nix said:
First of all, I have read quite a few of Mr Otter's articles in the past, and quite frankly I'm disappointed. He has been a very loyal (and unbiased) supporter of FOSS and related technologies in the past. However I cannot help but to agree with the views of folks in this thread that the article might be a bit ill conceived, and possibly not too well researched. Now let me state this upfront, because I know certain of you will think me biased, and I WILL get flamed. I'm posting this reply using a Macbook Pro, which I love, especially because I have not had to reboot it now for more than 40 days, and I can get a full day's work done on a single charge of the battery. I use the machine for both software development and systems testing. That to me is what differentiates Apple. Quality. I made a choice to to purchase their equipment and their operating system, which coincidently relies heavily on many open-source projects, and all the changes that Apple make to these open source projects are available from http://www.opensource.apple.com/ .

I have also in the past, and still currently do, make use of Open Source Software and Operating Systems, and have yet to see the likes of other major Notebook, and PC vendors freely make Linux or BSD drivers available for their equipment. Does that not make them proprietary as well, and stifle innovation? Quite frankly I'm quite disillusioned with the state of the Open Source Movement at present, as it is suffering from way too much in-fighting, and even worse some key maintainers of the Linux Kernel itself have developed quite an enormous chip on their shoulders, and believe that they can just dismiss the average hobbyist or night time kernel hacker trying to help improve their projects. But I digress, this is suppose to be Apple bashing, not FOSS bashing .. :P ...

If Apple want to control the hardware platform and the OS, in order to produce a more stable system, then I'll sacrifice a bit of flex-ability. Besides most enterprise-class vendors have been doing it for years! Think HP with HP-UX on PA-RISC, IBM with AIX on POWER and Sun with Solaris on SPARC. Personally, I like the whole notion of "It just works!"

To that extent, I really hope that Mr Otter will return to producing the more insightful, and balanced articles for which he is known.
Click to expand...

Try get 40 days out of Windows :p I used to get about 30 days with a fine tuned system. That is until patches with memory leaks start. The usual BS from MS :)

You're right. The Linux community is a mess and the in-fighting is off-putting if anything. Hell.. Linux is a mess. I love Ubuntu buts its a mess
 
ph0nix said:
I have also in the past, and still currently do, make use of Open Source Software and Operating Systems, and have yet to see the likes of other major Notebook, and PC vendors freely make Linux or BSD drivers available for their equipment. Does that not make them proprietary as well, and stifle innovation? Quite frankly I'm quite disillusioned with the state of the Open Source Movement at present, as it is suffering from way too much in-fighting, and even worse some key maintainers of the Linux Kernel itself have developed quite an enormous chip on their shoulders, and believe that they can just dismiss the average hobbyist or night time kernel hacker trying to help improve their projects. But I digress, this is suppose to be Apple bashing, not FOSS bashing .. :P ...
Click to expand...

Yes, those vendors are proprietary and stifle innovation. What does that have to do with FOSS, though?
 
Last edited:
rpm said:
Things need to change and Apple needs to be seen for what it really is: a threat to innovation and freedom.
Click to expand...

Call me a prophet, visionary, fortuneteller or just a plain troll - it comes down to the same thing.

I told you so !
 
hawker said:
Apple helped create CUPS which I thank them for!
Click to expand...

After it was already in development for 10yrs they hired the developer & purchased the source code. CUPS would have been fine today with or without apple.
 
hawker said:
Apple helped create CUPS which I thank them for!
Click to expand...

After it was already in development for 5yrs they hired the developer & purchased the source code. CUPS would have been fine today with or without apple.
 
Things need to change and Apple needs to be seen for what it really is: a threat to innovation and freedom.
Click to expand...
Apple have done great things for innovation and freedom, you are free to do what you want on your iPod or iPhone. You can load your choice of MP3's, videos, apps, you name it, visit whatever site you want.

Apple have contributed tremendously to CUPS since they adopted it in 2002.
 
phiber said:
Wow, so mathematicians must solve the worlds hardest problems and get payed fckall (really, academics earn very little) while other fckrs use that math to make millions ?? Do you not see a problem here? Is that not disgusting?? Bring on the patents, make the mathematician rich, make the guys that come up with the IDEAS RICH!!
Click to expand...
That would be disgusting, but how is it different to every other form of social stratification that occurs today, such as personal servants working their asses off for f-all vs. investors earning millions for relaxing in the comfort of their money earning property (eg. patents)? Or the man struggling to repay the interest on the bond on his home, interest that goes directly to the wealthy for simply having money?

These problems are created by one thing: money; and patents are nothing but a contrivance created by bureaucrats and lawyers for the sole purpose of supporting the monetary system. Want to see these problems persist? Support patents. Support the monetary system and all the false institutions that support it. Nothing will change if you continue along this path.


icyrus said:
What tripe. Human knowledge is derivative.
Click to expand...
What he said.
 
Last edited:
ejbengine said:
<snip>
How? Is it sufficient to make such an assertion without some real arguments? I'm interested in a counter argument that clarifies how what Apple is doing on those platforms isn't just as bad as MS.
I support the idea of renaming the title of the article to "DON'T COME HERE WITH THAT TENDENCY...THAT APPLE TENDENCY...."
:)
Click to expand...
We're interested in a primary assertion that is not filled with untruth and innuendo and tenuous linking of sensationalist headlines with unrelated content. At no point does the article actually show how the supposedly 'evil' behaviour of Apple around their mobile universe is actually bad for FOSS or that that behaviour is in way worse than Microsofts'.

Just because the writer makes a piss-poor case to start with, doesn't mean that I have legitimize his position point by point... others are doing that.

Is the writer saying that because Apple has made a success of their mobile platform - which seems to be the main gripe - that this is magically bad for FOSS?
 
kingrob said:
Get over yourself dude.
Click to expand...

Wow, what an intelligent retort ... Should we ask Sir Tim Berners-Lee if he thinks that Steve Jobs and his company was stifling innovation when he invented the server and browser components using a NeXT workstation and the NeXT Step OS (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTcube , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP). Remember these are the same components that make up the elements of your seemingly limited little window (No pun intended) on the world ...
 
Last edited:
Synaesthesia said:
Couldn't agree more ph0nix. He seems like a knowledgeable and intelligent geek and kudos to him for his promotion of Linux/FOSS (Tectonic)

I agree with your assessment of Linux and the Open Source movement. They are fractured and lack Apple's focus on simplicity, UI design (it matters!), and user-friendliness. Ultimately this is what has condemned desktop Linux to the small market share it has maintained for a long time, despite the incredible promise we all know it shows.
Click to expand...

Agreed Synaesthesia, I love Linux, before I switched to Apple, it was my ONLY desktop/laptop OS, and I loved it, because I had all the tools I needed to do my job, all bundled into one OS. But the truth is, I pretty much also ended up "paying a premium" for my hardware, as only certain manufacturers were more open to providing design details to the FOSS community. Hence if you want to run a Linux or BSD OS reliably on a laptop, you are already spending a premium for compatible hardware. I have ALOT of respect for what folks like Mark Shuttleworth has been able to achieve with Ubuntu, but even Shuttleworth also seems to have to get into a pissing contest more often than not with the upstream Debian developers about the way they should be doing things.. What a pity ...
 
gpe said:
Try get 40 days out of Windows :p I used to get about 30 days with a fine tuned system. That is until patches with memory leaks start. The usual BS from MS :)

You're right. The Linux community is a mess and the in-fighting is off-putting if anything. Hell.. Linux is a mess. I love Ubuntu buts its a mess
Click to expand...

I beg to differ, one of my Windows 7 machines with AA off just clocked 80 days, I regulary haver server uptime of 180days+ where I disabled the auto updates because I don't like SQL Server systems restarting.

and those things are running 30GB + databases across 15 or so applications. What brings Windows down is installing buggy drivers, bad A/V (sick of symantec endpoint) and some related sofbtware that sticks around in memory after you've closed it

D
 
Apple is "fighting" open source. But not directly, they are just making the closed [and controlled/dictated] environment much more appealing to the programmers now. In a way, the programmer isnt being left out of the profits [well... apple's taking a large slice but hey] and actually making lots of money. It's not apple directly that is "killing OOS", it's the 'greed' of programmers... apple just provides a platform for them to do just that. Maybe that does evaluate to apple being an enemy of OOS?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X