What have you done for me lately !!!

[Chuck Swiger]

On Jan 15, 2007, at 1:06 PM, Joe Arcaro wrote:
> Maybe this is just a rant, But I'll vent anyway.

Actually, I think you've graduated beyond "just ranting" to full- 
fledged trolling.

> I've been watching with some skepticism, the whole apple circus  
> freak fanboy show ...

Enjoy yourself.  If you ever get tired of watching Apple, for your  
next trick, you could try looking into a mirror.

> I was just curious, does it not bother any of the BSD developers  
> that Apple inc (TM) has based its entire business model on open  
> source software, and yet seems to have given little if any thing  
> back in return.

To your knowledge, anyway.  Oddly enough, Apple employs several BSD  
developers (mainly in the Core OS, networking, or devtools groups),  
in much the same fashion that OSDL employs Linus Torvalds and  
companies like IBM, RedHat, Novell, Debian, and so forth employ other  
Linux developers.

> I have on occasion looked at the apple web site, and never has  
> apple even given credit to any form of BSD !

While you could go to www.apple.com and enter "BSD" into the little  
search bar, those tricky people at Apple might fool you by returning  
relevant links.  So instead, go try searching for "Apple BSD" at  
Google or Yahoo.  The first two hits are:

http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/

Oops, nevermind-- those links are relevant, too.

> Is this all just acceptable, have I missed the whole point of open  
> source (Give something back when you can)
> or have I not read the fine print.

Why yes, Apple using parts of the FreeBSD source code (and NetBSD,  
and OpenBSD, and even a bit of GPL'ed software from the Free Software  
Foundation) is acceptable.  That's what the BSD license was designed  
to encourage and more generally is what OSI "Open Source Software" is  
supposed to be about.  It's about making better software available  
for everyone to use.

However, I'd be curious to see what software you've written under an  
Open Source license, if any?

Of course, Joe, you don't actually have to contribute anything to  
other people, and you are welcome to use FreeBSD, or Apple's Darwin,  
or Linux without giving anything back.  But it's funny how often  
people criticize others for "not contributing anything back in  
return" when that statement applies equally as well to the speaker...

-- 
-Chuck

PS: This email might be coming from a 17/8 IP address, but I don't  
speak for Apple.