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It is popular among Windows Enthusiasts to dismiss Apple's use of open
source as both a self-serving crutch to offset the company's imagined
inability to write its own code-insisting that Mac OS X is really just
FreeBSD with some extra graphics tacked on is a common meme among
certain wags-and also a one-sided grab that takes more than it gives.
In reality, Apple does a variety of things for the open source
community that are often ignored. Here's a closer look....
No amount of wealth or political power can bankrupt, buy out, or shut
down the entire community of free and open source software
development. That hasn't stopped Microsoft from trying however. After
years of idle complaint that described Linux and open source in
general as both a communist threat and a cancer, Microsoft's
executives dialed up their efforts this year with a warning that 235
of the company's patents were infringed upon in open source projects.
By not revealing which of its patents it had readied into position as
weapons against the community, Microsoft made it clear that the point
of its claim wasn't to stop any real infringement, but rather to
spread panic among companies involved in open source development and
discourage them with the fear that they could end up at the wrong end
of a very expensive lawsuit brought by a company with deep pockets.
However, Microsoft can't attack Apple or other significant patent
holders with its broad and nebulous patent threats; the two companies-
as all modern companies-file for new patents as fast as they can so
that the threat of mutually assured destruction will keep any patent
quibbles between major companies from sprouting.
Most open source-centric developers only have a smattering of patents,
but companies that back open source, such as Apple, Google, and IBM,
have huge portfolios of thousands of patents covering a broad range of
technologies. That makes Apple an unassailable ally of open source
development and lends corporate legitimacy to the very distributed
projects Microsoft is working to undermine with its fear-based anti-
marketing.
Among Microsoft's infamous "235 Linux patents", 45 actually relate to
OpenOffice and 83 apply to FOSS applications not part of the Linux
kernel or its commonly associated graphical interface code. Some of
that code may likely be included in Mac OS X. If Microsoft attempted
to shutdown SAMBA or projects pertaining to NTFS support for example,
Apple could intercede to pursue peace with an influence and patent
portfolio most FOSS developers lack.
The reason for Apple's natural alignment behind open source isn't due
to a halo of righteousness, but because the company is contending as a
minority player in several markets dominated by Microsoft and the
proprietary technologies it has established as de facto standards.
Apple's position is identical to Linux, BSD, and other open source
projects, giving it strong reasons to intercede on the behalf of
victims of patent terrorism....
[Analysis of relation of Apple to Open Source...]
For example, when Apple entered the web browser market, it based
Safari not on Mozilla's Gecko engine, but upon the lighter, faster
code developed for KDE. That gave KHTML a stature that it would never
have received in the shadow of Mozilla as an independent open source
project. It has also rapidly resulted in making KDE's code the basis
of best mobile browser, used both by Apple and its cooperative
competitor Nokia....
In addition to its role in defending, selecting, and promoting open
source efforts and lending leadership in community efforts as an
involved corporate citizen, Apple also empowers open source by putting
it to work and actually using it in volume production. That's the best
thing that can happen to any software.
Apple employs open source code in the BSD layer of Mac OS X, where
libraries of utilities from BSD and GNU fill out the abilities of Mac
OS X's core OS. This open architecture makes it easy for Mac users to
compile and install POSIX code that was originally written for other
Unix-like systems, from Sun Solaris to Linux to BSD. Mac OS X has by
far the largest installed desktop user base of any Unix-like system.
Apple is maintaining an openly interoperable relationship with open
source and commercial Unix by using the same LP64 data model used by
Solaris, Linux, and SGI IRIX to deliver 64-bit applications. This
makes it easier to port high end scientific and graphics code to
Leopard and defends the position of Unix as strong competitor to
Windows in those valuable markets. Microsoft implemented its own LLP64
data model for 64-bit apps.
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http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/18/symbiotic-what-apple-does-for-open-source/#more-1378
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