The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

I personally have no problems with Apple doing this. We must remember that Apple has always been and is still primarily a Hardware Vendor. The OS and software titles like iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto GarageBand and iDVD are all really just shills to sell more hardware. So I think they are perfectly within their rights to protect their hardware sales. Unless we are willing to pay Windows style pricing for every release of OS X (find a Vista license that gives you a 5-computer family pack for 199) or have Apple start adding the equivalent of Windows Genuine Advantage to their OS, let's not complain about their perfectly legal efforts to protect their primary business. They are a for-profit company who have shareholders like myself to answer to.

Aslam

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of course they can do that.

but
the risk is when their "opensource" effort bring nothing at all to users and enterprises. when nothing apple creates is used in others enterprises standards and products (you know, it's good when a society is behind an industrial "technology", even a "free" one ) or when _nothing_ from the linux free(dom) and opensource world can be merged into os X because of too much legal complications with the licence.

it's that Sun has with the excellent solaris , but okay, the business of apple is a way different from sun
but you have to think about the opensource contributions of apple : NONE got really used in any standard unix or linux. _none_ , Even "zeroconfig" (totally rewritten under the name "avahi' , launchd, quicktime streaming servers and so on

the only stuff used than apple made are apple contributions to external projects. as Gnu cc , Samba , khtml and others. the ones not under the rules and copyright of apple.

for god sake, even ibm, novell, sun and a myriad of others enterprises managed to put their products or standard inside many many industrial products.

I do not advocate to lost control of "darwin", apple need to protect the Mac.
but sometimes, you could hope apple _Really_ do as they say ("we love opensource" ) and really contribute something under a licence legally compatible with mostly all others guy, to put apple _inside_ the industry.

the APL 2 is, really, an opensource, and even a "free(dom) software" licence as the Free Software Foundation is promoting. but still, because apple invented their own flavor of opensource licence to subtlety prevent use of their source code merged with others products the main result is : outside of the mac os X, noone use apple source code.

not even the excellent idea of UTI , or the good start that was Launchd to remove the antics system V/BSD start scripts of unix ( now, ubuntu linux has finished to rewrite a complete modern system : startup )

All the same as Sun when they refuse to use GPL and instead use the CCL , mostly the same as gpl , just technical terms complicating the merge of the sources code. the end result is : none standards of solaris are promoted with linux. no gateway, no "discover sun zfs with your typical linux and come to the excellence that is Sun Solaris" or whatever effect. just people choosing to ignore all sun stuff, to avoid to be legally "contaminated" by sun Intellectual Property.

of course apple and sun contribute to some _third-parties_ projects (some under gpl, or bsd, or mit , php or others licences) , all fine here.

you have to understand, I _DO NOT_ say than apple should liberate any technology to be merged in Linux, Solaris or Windows, but strategically ones. and that, they missed. totally missed. and I do not believe it was totally by will.

(you know, when IBM liberate under flexible licence many stuff about NUMA technology, which was promptly merged inside the linux kernel, who do you believe was the bigger supplier of numa hardware ? IBM of course...)

what I want is apple to be more smart and wisely open to be, in the end, an unforgettable part of the whole industry. not only the mac stuff (and ipod).

you could say : the company is already knowing what to do to be profitable. it's true.
Just, I saw many missed opportunities to have BIGGER control of unix and linux market. good technologies, put in oblivion.

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@ Aslam
Apple hasn't been a "hardware vendor" for a very long time. Apple is a Multimedia Vendor who spans the gamut in hardware AND software development within it's consumer and professional product lines. In toher words, Apple sees their hardware, software, and content as both a razor and a blade.
As for license keys and pricing, it's not beyond Apple to follow Microsoft's model after they gain a certain percentage of the market.

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If Mikey wanted OS X on his boxen, he might have done better not to badmouth Apple.
I don't know him personally, but I have never heard anyone say The Steve is a lighthearted forgiving kinda guy.

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