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Date:      Sat, 26 May 2001 15:23:20 -0700
From:      Jordan Hubbard <jkh@osd.bsdi.com>
To:        fredrik@speechcraft.com
Cc:        dscheidt@tumbolia.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: The desktop apathy
Message-ID:  <20010526152320O.jkh@osd.bsdi.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0105262306060.319-100000@molly.telia.com>
References:  <Pine.BSF.4.32L2.0105261548270.96952-100000@shell-2.enteract.com> <Pine.LNX.4.21.0105262306060.319-100000@molly.telia.com>

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I think you're over-simplifying Apple's position somewhat.

While I certainly would love to see Aqua and all the Carbon/Cocoa APIs
released as Open Source (and said as much in this Salon article at
http://www.salon.com/tech/review/2000/11/17/hubbard_osx/index.html), I
don't think it's realistic to expect Apple to just throw the doors
open and release software which cost it thousands of man-hours to
write.

There has to be some sort of financial return for anyone to make open
source work, and in Apple's case this goes well beyond just hardware
sales - they've already made a lot of money from selling OS X and will
likely continue to do so.  What I would expect Apple to do more of is
_gradually_ open sourcing things once they've paid their way and have
transitioned from differentiating to commodity technology.  I'm
impressed that they open-sourced CDSA right out of the starting gate,
in fact.  It's something that tends to indicate an understanding of
the dividing line between technology that's a genuine value-add vs
being purely infrastructural and standards oriented.

- Jordan

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