I am going to speak as someone who is a long time Apple user (I remember my Apple II compatible fondly), as one who is posting this from Mac OS X, and as one who watched Apple with some interest for a while now. So here's my take with said qualifications:
You all need to calm down. The first thing to consider about Apple is that it is indeed a large corporation. This means that it has many parts that are not on the whole aware of one another. Apple Legal is always pulling crap like this. No one likes it, but the great thing about Apple is that they do stupid things and then fix them.
I remember there was a firmware update that, whether or not intentionally, made it impossible to upgrade a G3 to a G4. Remember that? So everyone complained. And they fixed it. Apple nixed the Apple Menu, and everyone complained, so they fixed it. It's life with Apple. One part of Apple messes something up, and then the shit hits the fan, and it is fixed. It's the nature of a beastly large corp. "Apple" doesn't have an opinion on Open Source. I'm sure lots of people at Apple love open source, and lots hate it.
As for Steve Jobs, the man is CEO of two large corporations. He's busy. Despite his tendancy to micro-manage, if you think this was his idea, you're wrong. He's got better things to do, like convince people that Desktop Video really is the next thing. (I ALMOST might believe it.) Steve Jobs is not a devil. Apple is not evil. I'll take a guess. Legal did something on their own. The upper brass wil now find out, say "How incredibly stupid of the legal department!", chide them vigorously, and try to fix things a bit.
Boy, sometimes I feel like most slashdotters must think I'm a complete moron for not bowing down to the alter of open source. And it has been mentioned before, ut oh well. There are lots of themes for Mac OS and OS X already, and Apple lets them go. So this is not an attack themes. It's protection of copyrighted material. You might think it's wrong. But that's the issue, not interface customization, not Apple being evil, not open source. It's about copyright, so debate the right topic.
My Mac User Group got to see a demo of DP3 a while ago, and what impressed me was how stable it was, even at only a developer preview. More stable than the current Mac OS? Definitely. Read the Ars Technica article: The author notes that Mac OS X's classic environment feels faster and more stable than good ol' OS 9. The features do indeed need work, but the OS is very stable. I, for one, can't wait.
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You all need to calm down. The first thing to consider about Apple is that it is indeed a large corporation. This means that it has many parts that are not on the whole aware of one another. Apple Legal is always pulling crap like this. No one likes it, but the great thing about Apple is that they do stupid things and then fix them.
I remember there was a firmware update that, whether or not intentionally, made it impossible to upgrade a G3 to a G4. Remember that? So everyone complained. And they fixed it. Apple nixed the Apple Menu, and everyone complained, so they fixed it. It's life with Apple. One part of Apple messes something up, and then the shit hits the fan, and it is fixed. It's the nature of a beastly large corp. "Apple" doesn't have an opinion on Open Source. I'm sure lots of people at Apple love open source, and lots hate it.
As for Steve Jobs, the man is CEO of two large corporations. He's busy. Despite his tendancy to micro-manage, if you think this was his idea, you're wrong. He's got better things to do, like convince people that Desktop Video really is the next thing. (I ALMOST might believe it.) Steve Jobs is not a devil. Apple is not evil. I'll take a guess. Legal did something on their own. The upper brass wil now find out, say "How incredibly stupid of the legal department!", chide them vigorously, and try to fix things a bit.
Boy, sometimes I feel like most slashdotters must think I'm a complete moron for not bowing down to the alter of open source. And it has been mentioned before, ut oh well. There are lots of themes for Mac OS and OS X already, and Apple lets them go. So this is not an attack themes. It's protection of copyrighted material. You might think it's wrong. But that's the issue, not interface customization, not Apple being evil, not open source. It's about copyright, so debate the right topic.
My Mac User Group got to see a demo of DP3 a while ago, and what impressed me was how stable it was, even at only a developer preview. More stable than the current Mac OS? Definitely. Read the Ars Technica article: The author notes that Mac OS X's classic environment feels faster and more stable than good ol' OS 9. The features do indeed need work, but the OS is very stable. I, for one, can't wait.