Apple and Open Source

[Darren Benham]

On Wed, Mar 17, 1999 at 07:58:26AM -0500, Ben Collins wrote:
> I get _1_ thing from the above. Apple wants to release source of
> pre-release software, have the the community work on fixing bugs and
> adding features (which they then have rights to once you register them
> on the website), take those features/fixes and incorporate them into a
> final retail product which they will sell (without source) and the
That might be true.  Might even be Ok (tm).  because

> community is left with non-release quality source.
That is *not* necessarily true.  The community doesn't loose the original
source code OR the modifications made by the community.  All that would be
needed is some responsible soul from the community to take charge of all
the changes and release a "competing" product *with* all source code.

On the other hand (and I havn't read the license, I'm talking in general
theory) if Apple *does* remove rights to the changes they incorporate from
the community, that would be a Bad Thing.  

I'm amazed at the near total lack of trust in the Gnu developer community
towards their fellow developer.  We have a long history of matching and
surpassing non-free software.  The basic rule is, "anything cathedral can
do, bazaar can do better."  That has been proven time and time again.  So
what if Apple thinks it can abuse that.  Free Software will still put it
together stronger and better... and considering how "fast" corporations
work... the free version will be released before the non-free version no
matter that Apple tries to use pre-release code.  (after all, there is no
such thing as "pre-release" in the bazaar).

Just my $.02 worth...