Apple's Spotty Record of Giving Back To the Tech Industry 268
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.'"
Re:Steve Jobs' culture (Score:5, Informative)
It's my understanding he wasn't big on giving money away.
Well your understanding is wrong. He donated anonymously [dailymail.co.uk].
Re:$1b corps (Score:5, Informative)
What replacement?
CommonCrypto [apple.com].
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.
Article is flame bait. Or a troll. (Score:5, Informative)
"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.
Basic lack of humanity (Score:0, Informative)
I do find it so sad that Apple can have as much as 100 billion in the bank but won't put some money into the accounts of the BSD groups.
Last time I jail break my Ipad I found it fascinating to see things like the pf (packetfilter) firewall module loaded in the kernel via the kldstat command, they took the BSD os so heavily and I think they should put some money into these foundations on a regular basis as a basic gesture of good faith.
It doesn't have to be a lot but it certainty lacks humanity and basic class to be so ridiculously greedy to build so much wealth on these open source technologies but be so stingey.
Re:Steve Jobs' culture (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Why would I work for free to make Apple rich? (Score:3, Informative)
1) Do what the f**k you want with it
2) If it breaks your stuff, we're not liable
3)if you want to redistribute it, in any way shape or form, give us credit
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why would I work for free to make Apple rich? (Score:4, Informative)
Not true.
GPL doesn't restrict people from using the software any way they want. It restricts them from preventing anyone else from using the software any way they want.
Which matters - let me know how trying to run Apple on non-apple hardware without paying for a license goes, in comparison to a GPL'd OS.
Re:Apple has always been "stealing" (Score:4, Informative)
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?
Re:Inspiration (Score:4, Informative)
Funny, because a guy that worked at both PARC and Apple says you're wrong. [folklore.org]