It's not about code. It’s about character.
I’m not so much concerned about the single issue of Apple’s sandbagging its open source commitment for six months (and counting). The kernel will open up again, this tempest will fade away, and I’ll be glad for it. What will continue to concern me so deeply is that Apple thought it would be OK, that nobody would notice or care, if it back-burnered its commitment to keep its open source Darwin OS in lockstep and binary compatibility with OS X. I noticed. My story got such wide attention because lots of people — whose numbers well exceed that fraction of a fraction who would tinker with or compile an OS kernel — understand why breaking a promise, and saying nothing about it, matters. It’s not about code. It’s about character.
Why Apple snubs its open source geeks | InfoWorld | Column | 2006-06-14 | By Tom Yager
I find this particular Free Software / Open Source issue interesting because legally due to the APL and BSD licenses respectively - Apple are under no commitment to share with the public any future revisions to the so licensed code.
Steve Jobs promised Apple customers “Open Source” and the possibility of backing down on future public source code releases could be very good reason to question the integrity of Apple - its brand, its products and its people.
technorati tags:Apple, Opensource, freesoftware, APL, BSD, licence, XNU, Darwin, OSX, Mac, InfoWorld
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