Roy,
I think your statement that Apple "gives nothing back" is an exaggeration. Let's at least be fair about it.
To give but one example, they "took" the web browser code from Konqueror and improved it, becoming what is now called Webkit. That is open source code--and is the basis of the new Konqueror, in fact, as well as various other browser projects.
Second, the basis for OSX was indeed open source, but from the BSD universe--where the licensing permits exactly what they have done with it. When they have used GPL code, as with the browser example, they have complied with that license as well.
Personally, I'm not adverse to the creation or use of a closed source product by those who wish to. As for open source code, so long as folks follow the license provisions, they are perfectly entitled to do what they wish with it otherwise. That is, after all, what licenses are for.
Not using Apple computers is your right, just as using them is the right of any who wants to.
To give them their due, OSX has an outstanding GUI--certainly not perfect but better in many ways than just about anything else out there--and no, I don't own an Apple and have no intention of buying one.
I, too, have used KDE as my primary UI for many years. It appears that the project may be changing a great deal, though--and I would not be surprised if its name changes as well in the near-term future. I noticed, for instance, that KOffice has been renamed, while the desktop itself is more and more using the "Plasma" designation. I think that is a function of its increasing stress on mobile devices.
David
--- In LINUX_Newbies@yahoogroups.com, Roy <linuxcanuck@...> wrote:
>
> I for one will never buy a Mac even if they were the only computer maker
> left. I love open source and free software and Apple is at the exact
> opposite. They are freedom haters that take from open source and give
> nothing back, worse than Microsoft. I say this as someone whose first
> computer was an Apple II. It was open and free as you like then Jobs killed
> it off and came up with a closed computer for non techies and called it the
> Mac. Yuck!
No comments:
Post a Comment