Apple's Open Source Stew

Tor Slettnes sent us a link to a fairfax article that talks about the sticky situation Apple seems to have gotten itself into regarding Open Source. Touches on the Open Source Trademark issue, as well as the ever Popular Perens vs. ESR vs. RMS issues. It actually covers the bases pretty well. Worth a read.

Comments

bitter political war

[pohl]

When Netscape announced their intent to release the mozilla source under an open-source license, there was extensive (and often hostile) debate in public fora. It eventually led to both clarification and modification of the first iteration of their license. Nobody in the press called it a "bitter political war." Maybe that's because back then the reporters didn't know where the discussion was taking place.

This kind of open debate, however bitter it may seem to outsiders, is how the collective operates. Somebody posts something to the net (be it draft code, or a draft license) and everybody who gives a shit starts to argue about the Right Way(tm) it should be done. Anything that a company offers to The Community is, implicitly, an RFC. If your request gets you no commentary, that's when there's a problem. Beware the day when any of the people involved want to stop the dialogue, not the day when the dialogue is passionate.