Mac OS X Secretly Cripples Non-Apple Software

spikedLemur writes "Vladimir Vukicevic of the Firefox team stumbled upon some questionable practices from Apple while trying to improve the performance of Firefox. Apparently, Apple is using some undocumented APIs that give Safari a significant performance advantage over other browsers. Of course, "undocumented" means that non-Apple developers have to try and reverse-engineer these interfaces to get the same level of performance. You really have to wonder what Apple is thinking, considering the kind of retaliation Microsoft has gotten for similar practices.

Comments

Proprietary software is monopoly software.

[jbn-o]

All proprietary software developers are monopolists. You can't get MacOS X from any other developer but Apple. Similarly you can't get Windows from anyone but Microsoft. Sure, many distributors will sell you a copy of either operating system but they are merely passing on a copy of what Apple or Microsoft published. Along the same line, users of non-free operating software are never in a position to fully control their computer. As someone recently pointed out, the users are never in the same class as the proprietor. When you run non-free software you put the monopolists in control.