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Apple's Spotty Record of Giving Back To the Tech Industry
chicksdaddy (814965) writes "Given Apple's status as the world's most valuable company and its enormous cash hoard, the refusal to offer even meager support to open source and industry groups is puzzling. From the article: 'Apple bundles software from the Apache Software Foundation with its OS X operating system, but does not financially support the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) in any way. That is in contrast to Google and Microsoft, Apple's two chief competitors, which are both Platinum sponsors of ASF — signifying a contribution of $100,000 annually to the Foundation. Sponsorships range as low as $5,000 a year (Bronze), said Sally Khudairi, ASF's Director of Marketing and Public Relations. The ASF is vendor-neutral and all code contributions to the Foundation are done on an individual basis. Apple employees are frequent, individual contributors to Apache. However, their employer is not, Khudairi noted. The company has been a sponsor of ApacheCon, a for-profit conference that runs separately from the Foundation — but not in the last 10 years. "We were told they didn't have the budget," she said of efforts to get Apple's support for ApacheCon in 2004, a year in which the company reported net income of $276 million on revenue of $8.28 billion.'"
Google doesn't contribute to (insert some random pet project of mine) but apple does.
Microsoft ONLY does it to gain control, the fact that you mention them hurts your point more than helps it.
You have selection bias, there isn't actually anything to see here, Apple contributes to just about every OSS project they themselves use themselves in the form of code contributions.
Just because they aren't buying favors doesn't mean they don't contribute.
This post will be followed by many people throwing out long lists of Apple products that are OSS and the contributions back to those projects from other posts so I feel no need to bother reposting the various pages that show their contributions but ... LLVM would be a really good place for you to start.
Selection bias doesn't make your point valid.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Does this article exist for any purpose other than fanning the flame?
Yes, Apple should probably throw some cash at the Apache foundation, but that's not why this was posted to Slashdot.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
So Apache is now is equal to the entire tech industry? Nice title there.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Why would I contribute to open source, when Apple - and Google - use it to build walled gardens and make millions - billions - of dollars I'll never see a penny of? The exploitation of open source by companies that use it to build products that are the opposite of the open source philosophy - I mean walled gardens - is getting hard to take. You can say that they're free to do whatever they want with open source as long as they comply with the licenses, but that's not my point. What could possibly motivate me to donate my time and skills to making Apple and Google more money? The walled garden is going to destroy open source. The funny thing is no one seems to care. People are abandoning GNU's forced openness and going to licenses that basically let big companies exploit the software any way they want to. I guess the days of principled opposition to what Apple and Google are doing are over.
It's my understanding he wasn't big on giving money away.
Well your understanding is wrong. He donated anonymously.
It's my understanding he wasn't big on giving money away.
Your understanding is incorrect.
He didn't like telling everyone about his donations.
He didn't like doing it to show off or for politics, he preferred to donate to the actual cause, not so other people would think he was a good person.
He didn't donate so you liked him, he donated to accomplish things.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It's my understanding he wasn't big on giving money away.
Your understanding is incorrect.
He didn't like telling everyone about his donations.
He didn't like doing it to show off or for politics, he preferred to donate to the actual cause, not so other people would think he was a good person.
He didn't donate so you liked him, he donated to accomplish things.
But still, somehow, you know and it makes him even better in your eyes. Interesting that.
Innovation is always built on the back of others. Nothing pops out of the blue. It is only the lack of education that makes on believes otherwise. The entire affordable microcomputer industry is based on Compaq's reverse engineering(stealing) of the IBM OS. The free browser for everyone is due to MS conning a profitable firm, then giving away the browser and forcing that firm into bankruptcy. Innovation has never been about pulling a product out of you ass. A knife was not suddenly one day made. We had to figure out how to mine the melt, smelt it, and then how to make it a knife that is not brittle.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What replacement?
CommonCrypto.
It was my understanding that when they depreciated OpenSSL they just asked software vendors and users to bundle/get the latest version themselves. Which means that a lot of OSX servers _are_ vulnerable while Apple can claim OSX is not.
Nope, they said to use CommonCrypto.
"The company lists dozens of open source projects and components that it contributes code to: from the Apache web server"
And that, my friends, is what open source is all about. You use, you give code back.
The article title should really be "Apple's Spotty Record of Giving Monetarily To The Apache Foundation." To agree with that Apple should be giving them money is the moral equivalent of saying that users should have to pay to use Apache.
I absolutely despise the phrase "giving back" when referring to charity, because it implies they took something.
Apple has already given back, every dollar they got was in exchange for either an app, iphone, ipad, laptop or something else that the customer got. They have already given something back for every penny they made. This goes for every single company selling products or services (Except when governments are involved)
I donate quite a bit every year for worthy causes without asking for anything in return, and I hate it when my efforts are diminished by calling them "giving back".
Charity is not "giving back", charity is charity, it is a company or individual willingly giving up profit in order to help someone. Ideally, the company benefits from the charity by getting good PR, so it becomes a win-win; it becomes an investment instead of charity, which makes it more sustainable and will hopefully cause it to repeat in the future.
As far as open source code goes, Apple does invest significantly in projects like llvm and webkit and the world is a better place because of it.
The idea that apple somehow owes me and you or the apache foundation is just entitlement mentality.
If you bought apple's products, it is because you think their product is worth more than the money you paid for it, otherwise you would not have gotten it. In that case, Apple owes you nothing.
If you did not buy apple's product, then what they do does not affect you. In this case, Apple owes you nothing.
If you want to encourage Apple to donate code or money, then highlight, applaud and buy products from companies that behave the way you want them to. If enough people vote with their money and show that charity pays off, then either apple will do it, or the companies you support will do it more thanks to your support.
Well, he was a shrewd business man so maybe it was part of his plan.
Of course, the reason I know is because I get interested in learning more about why people are assholes ... And in this particular case, I found out that he wasn't nearly as bad as the haters want to make it out.
The organization his wife created ... Many of its employees don't know that she created it nor that she donates massive amounts to it ... Because it was designed from the start to hide her contributes.
That could be a money laundering scheme of course, but considering the scrutiny you get as a member of the Job family, that would be surprising.
It's more likely that this is just an extension of the fact that they are very private people.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Apple funds the majority of WebKit which is open source. So they are funding open source to the tune of millions of dollars a year. I'm guessing they have between 50 and 200 programmers on WebKit. I'm guessing they have a few other open source projects as well.
Really, did you miss the whole goto fail thing, where everyone was looking at the source? Of course, the number of ACs back then crowing "stupid Apple should have stuck with OpenSSL, which is thoroughly vetted by thousands of eyes!" gives me the feeling that ACs will have a very selective memory about the whole thing now.
When Apple has released stuff as open source software, it has either been because they were forced to by the license, or because it was for software that primarily runs on OS X.
Clang puts the lie to this.
And just why do you find that interesting? If making himself look better was Jobs's game plan, he would have been public with the donations. What I will find interesting is how much of a dent this makes in the Jobs-never-gave-money-to-charity talking point. Sort of like how you could dig up the Apple -> XEROX stock receipts and it wouldn't make a dent in the "Apple stole from PARC" talking point.
Yeah, when they bought CUPS and then hired the guy they bought it from in order to have him continue maintaining it, and then kept it completely open, they were clearly forced to do so. Oh, and CUPS clearly only runs primarily on OS X.
Are you cracked?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I think thats down to Xerox Parc, not Apple
Umm, other than spouting a cliché, have you ever seen what PARC designed? No such thing as direct object manipulation (you clicked on an icon and then got a menu; you couldn't do anything with that icon. Couldn't drag it, move it, double-click it.). No hierarchal space, nothing analogous to QuickDraw, etc. I could go on...
Just because a buggy also had 4 wheels doesn't mean your BMW is much of a derivative.
Funny, because a guy that worked at both PARC and Apple says you're wrong.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.