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<blockquote data-quote="vansmith" data-source="post: 1436726" data-attributes="member: 71075">My previous post doesn't do justice to the extent that Apple leverages open source software. They do use quite a bit of it. In fact, Apple is pretty good at posting the sources to the code that they do use (see <a href="http://opensource.apple.com/" target="_blank">here</a>). At the same time however, Apple is a company that &quot;uses and contributes&quot; as much as they need to in the pursuit of their own goals. In other words, they give back only what they need to. This isn't a value judgment but rather an observation.Apple's relationship with the open source world is a bit of a mixed bag. They've done a tremendous amount of good (thank you WebKit!) while at the same time, they've antagonized and alienated developers on projects that they depend on. For instance, there was quite a bit of frustration in the CUPS (printing) community when Apple started to push for changes that would only benefit OS X (keep in mind that CUPS was initially developed to serve the printing needs of the *nix community at large). So, on the whole, Apple's &quot;middle of the road&quot; when it comes to open source - they're better than a company like Microsoft (at least historically so) but quite far behind others like Google. Again, this isn't a value judgment since no model is inherently better than the other for business.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="vansmith, post: 1436726, member: 71075"] My previous post doesn't do justice to the extent that Apple leverages open source software. They do use quite a bit of it. In fact, Apple is pretty good at posting the sources to the code that they do use (see [URL="http://opensource.apple.com/"]here[/URL]). At the same time however, Apple is a company that "uses and contributes" as much as they need to in the pursuit of their own goals. In other words, they give back only what they need to. This isn't a value judgment but rather an observation. Apple's relationship with the open source world is a bit of a mixed bag. They've done a tremendous amount of good (thank you WebKit!) while at the same time, they've antagonized and alienated developers on projects that they depend on. For instance, there was quite a bit of frustration in the CUPS (printing) community when Apple started to push for changes that would only benefit OS X (keep in mind that CUPS was initially developed to serve the printing needs of the *nix community at large). So, on the whole, Apple's "middle of the road" when it comes to open source - they're better than a company like Microsoft (at least historically so) but quite far behind others like Google. Again, this isn't a value judgment since no model is inherently better than the other for business. [/QUOTE]

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