Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms?(ebb.org)
ebb.org
Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms?
http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/15/apple-is-not-our-friend.html
313 comments
Reading this thread, I can only imagine some people saying to themselves: and this is why we don't open source our code.
I wonder how many companies keep their source completely closed so as not to have to deal with this kind of PR? Would we not be in a better world if, when a company offers code under a BSD-like license, we just say "thank you very much" and move on? If we don't like the license, we develop our own code under a different one, and that's the way the world is meant to work, surely?
There's a lot about this backlash I genuinely don't understand.
I wonder how many companies keep their source completely closed so as not to have to deal with this kind of PR? Would we not be in a better world if, when a company offers code under a BSD-like license, we just say "thank you very much" and move on? If we don't like the license, we develop our own code under a different one, and that's the way the world is meant to work, surely?
There's a lot about this backlash I genuinely don't understand.
Lots of comments are talking about how Apple "doesn't owe [the FSF] anything" and that it's a "business decisison". This is all true, but it misses the point.
The point is that the current trend of companies releasing stuff under non-copyleft licenses and keeping the 'good stuff' in proprietary forks is bad for free (FSF-style) software. That's why the article argues that you should take a good look at what these companies are actually doing beyond press releases and act accordingly.
You might still think that free software is unimportant or that having pseudo-freemium open source release is still better than nothing. But that's your own decision, based on your own values, which might not be the values the FSF thinks of as important.
The point is that the current trend of companies releasing stuff under non-copyleft licenses and keeping the 'good stuff' in proprietary forks is bad for free (FSF-style) software. That's why the article argues that you should take a good look at what these companies are actually doing beyond press releases and act accordingly.
You might still think that free software is unimportant or that having pseudo-freemium open source release is still better than nothing. But that's your own decision, based on your own values, which might not be the values the FSF thinks of as important.
I don't believe Mr. Kuhn is especially aware of how LLVM is developed. I am a regular contributor to the project (> 1000+ commits) and it is simply not the case that one can contribute code in this way.
The LLVM project makes it's stance on patents quite clear [1].
[1] http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#patents
The LLVM project makes it's stance on patents quite clear [1].
[1] http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#patents
I'm not sold on the inherent good of copyleft licenses. The author seems to think that funding development of permissively licensed free software is, in fact, a bad thing. I'm sure that seems obviously true to some people.
If Apple is a "wily opponent" of open source, then maybe we need more such opponents?
(Also, I'm not following the argument that Apple is open sourcing Swift to try and beat Android. Nor do I think the Android platform deserves as much of a pass as the author gives it.)
If Apple is a "wily opponent" of open source, then maybe we need more such opponents?
(Also, I'm not following the argument that Apple is open sourcing Swift to try and beat Android. Nor do I think the Android platform deserves as much of a pass as the author gives it.)
Chris Lattner fought many years (I believe he started working on Swift 5 years ago) to eventually bring Swift to the open source world. It's not a "tactical stunt" to implement Apple's evil plan to lure people away from Android/Linux. Believe it or not, there are people inside Apple who really want feedback and contributions from the community to improve their language.
This kind of texts always reminds me of political/religious pamphlets.
If you love freedom so much why don't you just let people release their software under a license they seem appropriate and you release your software under copyleft?
If Apple's not your friend don't play with them. Don't try to force them into a friendship.
If you love freedom so much why don't you just let people release their software under a license they seem appropriate and you release your software under copyleft?
If Apple's not your friend don't play with them. Don't try to force them into a friendship.
This seems a little extreme.
"To me, Apple's not-yet-executed move to liberate some of the Swift 2.0 code seems a tactical stunt to win over developers who currently prefer the relatively more open nature of the Android/Linux platform."
They said why this was the case -- Swift 2.0 isn't finished yet -- but have pledged to open-source the entire thing.
"To me, Apple's not-yet-executed move to liberate some of the Swift 2.0 code seems a tactical stunt to win over developers who currently prefer the relatively more open nature of the Android/Linux platform."
They said why this was the case -- Swift 2.0 isn't finished yet -- but have pledged to open-source the entire thing.
This isn't a compelling argument for anyone like me who doesn't think copyleft licensing is some grand virtue. If they haven't violated the licenses of software they're using, I don't see a problem. They're under no obligation to open anything at all to the public, and shouldn't be.
Just to take the wind out of the sails of the first paragraph:
http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#patents
LLVM has a developer patent policy, and Apple will adhere to it the same as anyone else or the code won't be part of LLVM. Chris Lattner knows this. LLVM has a foundation with directors that aren't Apple.
So yeah, there goes that argument.
As for the rest - Bradley acts like the free software advocates were much better at open development or not throwing stuff over the wall.
Emacs, for a very long time (and other fsf projects the same), had secret pre-tests. If you shared the ftp info with others and they found out, they'd remove your access.
Part of the EGCS/GCC split was precisely over the fact that GCC was not openly developed.
Their projects still aren't all developed in a very open or free manner.
Of course, Bradley instead concentrates on the higher level view of what this will do to programming language development , partially because Free Software has such a poor history at the lower level on this one, and partially, i believe, because the details just don't matter to him if the concept is achieved :P.
The short version of that is: I'd love to see the free software folks get their own house in great order before continuously calling everyone else out.
It's not that they are wrong in a lot of ways (except about the patent stuff), but the details matter, and they have a very poor history on those details. They stand nearly zero chance of convincing anyone when all that happens is to stand on a soapbox and scream about how bad everyone else is. I know y'all want to just compete on ideology, but it isn't going to work. Prove it's not just a better ideology, but it leads to better communities, or better projects, or anything.
Otherwise, it's just another political faction that nobody is going to care about.
http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#patents
LLVM has a developer patent policy, and Apple will adhere to it the same as anyone else or the code won't be part of LLVM. Chris Lattner knows this. LLVM has a foundation with directors that aren't Apple.
So yeah, there goes that argument.
As for the rest - Bradley acts like the free software advocates were much better at open development or not throwing stuff over the wall.
Emacs, for a very long time (and other fsf projects the same), had secret pre-tests. If you shared the ftp info with others and they found out, they'd remove your access.
Part of the EGCS/GCC split was precisely over the fact that GCC was not openly developed.
Their projects still aren't all developed in a very open or free manner.
Of course, Bradley instead concentrates on the higher level view of what this will do to programming language development , partially because Free Software has such a poor history at the lower level on this one, and partially, i believe, because the details just don't matter to him if the concept is achieved :P.
The short version of that is: I'd love to see the free software folks get their own house in great order before continuously calling everyone else out.
It's not that they are wrong in a lot of ways (except about the patent stuff), but the details matter, and they have a very poor history on those details. They stand nearly zero chance of convincing anyone when all that happens is to stand on a soapbox and scream about how bad everyone else is. I know y'all want to just compete on ideology, but it isn't going to work. Prove it's not just a better ideology, but it leads to better communities, or better projects, or anything.
Otherwise, it's just another political faction that nobody is going to care about.
> we should expect the chosen non-copyleft license will not contain a patent grant.
How come? Does Apple have a history of licensing open source software and making it unusable with patents? I can't say I'd be surprised, but it would be news to me. Is Webkit a counter-example, I don't think they've chased Google about patents?
How come? Does Apple have a history of licensing open source software and making it unusable with patents? I can't say I'd be surprised, but it would be news to me. Is Webkit a counter-example, I don't think they've chased Google about patents?
This seems pretty much to reduce to the old copyleft-vs-liberal license debate (along with a generous sprinkling of fear, uncertainty, and doubt), which doesn't seem worth re-hashing.
I don't think I'll ever understand the sense of entitlement people who advocate this idea of 'copyleft license or else' seem to have.
There's nothing bad about Apple not using a copyleft license. I'm glad we live in a world where they can pick any license they want. Apple could have kept Swift closed source if they wanted, and I would have been okay with that - while I might have liked for them to make it open source, it's completely up to them what they want to do with it.
There's nothing bad about Apple not using a copyleft license. I'm glad we live in a world where they can pick any license they want. Apple could have kept Swift closed source if they wanted, and I would have been okay with that - while I might have liked for them to make it open source, it's completely up to them what they want to do with it.
Are we still having these "They chose a license other than the one I support, so it's not really Open Source software." rants in 2015? I thought we were done with those in the late 90s? Come on.
I don't blame them after what Google did with Chrome from all the hard work they poured into WebKit. Especially since they later forked it into a separate project.
So while this is a programming language and such an issue is not likely to rise here - I can see why Apple would be very cautious in this case.
So while this is a programming language and such an issue is not likely to rise here - I can see why Apple would be very cautious in this case.
Open Source is not "the cooption of Free Software".
Early versions of the BSD License dates back to at least 1988, the GPLv1 was created in 1989. Do whatever you want, or public domain licensing existing long before either.
If anything GPL and the FSF co-opted Free-as-in-Beer software into their own version of Software-that-is-forever-Free, and now have rewritten history to the point that all BSD code is an attack on Freedom.
And this is largely why GPL/FSF is fighting a losing battle these days. Companies view the GPLv3 as toxic, and most of the kids on GitHub don't care and don't understand why their code isn't just BSD-by-default (and the License Anarchy "movement" is a much bigger problem than this losing battle that FSF is picking with Open Source).
Early versions of the BSD License dates back to at least 1988, the GPLv1 was created in 1989. Do whatever you want, or public domain licensing existing long before either.
If anything GPL and the FSF co-opted Free-as-in-Beer software into their own version of Software-that-is-forever-Free, and now have rewritten history to the point that all BSD code is an attack on Freedom.
And this is largely why GPL/FSF is fighting a losing battle these days. Companies view the GPLv3 as toxic, and most of the kids on GitHub don't care and don't understand why their code isn't just BSD-by-default (and the License Anarchy "movement" is a much bigger problem than this losing battle that FSF is picking with Open Source).
Honest question:
The author mentions patents. What patents could their possibly be with Swift? There's a TON of information on compiler theory available. Would Apple have wasted time trying to come up with something new just to patent it?
The author mentions patents. What patents could their possibly be with Swift? There's a TON of information on compiler theory available. Would Apple have wasted time trying to come up with something new just to patent it?
There are a lot of valid criticisms that can be thrown at Apple these days, and maybe they're not "our" friend.
But I find myself thinking more and more that when a company becomes the most valuable private entity in the history of humanity off the back of luxury goods the vast majority of the world can't afford - and in a highly competitive arena too - you really have to assume they know what they're doing when it comes to doing right by themselves. And who can blame them for that?
Apple have won: in business terms, they define success. Standing in judgement of them makes me feel foolish.
But I find myself thinking more and more that when a company becomes the most valuable private entity in the history of humanity off the back of luxury goods the vast majority of the world can't afford - and in a highly competitive arena too - you really have to assume they know what they're doing when it comes to doing right by themselves. And who can blame them for that?
Apple have won: in business terms, they define success. Standing in judgement of them makes me feel foolish.
IMO non-copyleft opensource licenses are better for technology push as they lower the barriers for the closedsource industry to embrace and extend the technology.
This might also be the case with Apple and Swift.
This might also be the case with Apple and Swift.
No Company is really our "friend".
I agree with the title of this, but not much else.
I have nothing against apple or swift, but the way I see it, there's no good reason to only target iOS and ignore android and windows. So Swift has no utility for me at all. Proprietary languages are the worst sort of vendor lock-in, and I have no interest in participating, especially considering that apple has historically not been particularly great to developers.
I have nothing against apple or swift, but the way I see it, there's no good reason to only target iOS and ignore android and windows. So Swift has no utility for me at all. Proprietary languages are the worst sort of vendor lock-in, and I have no interest in participating, especially considering that apple has historically not been particularly great to developers.
It is an ok article. I checked the license of LLVM though:
http://llvm.org/releases/2.8/LICENSE.TXT
http://llvm.org/docs/FAQ.html#does-the-university-of-illinoi...
If there is something very specific to Apple and they want to keep the copyright after writing that module in LLVM, we should respect their decision. There are several companies using copyright licenses or not open sourcing anything they are working on. Compare to them this entire LLVM situation is a success story from the free software point of view. LLVM became the default toolchain and compiler for many project because of its high quality and meaningful error messages (GCC anyone?). I can live without Swift, but I definitely need LLVM going forward.
http://llvm.org/releases/2.8/LICENSE.TXT
http://llvm.org/docs/FAQ.html#does-the-university-of-illinoi...
If there is something very specific to Apple and they want to keep the copyright after writing that module in LLVM, we should respect their decision. There are several companies using copyright licenses or not open sourcing anything they are working on. Compare to them this entire LLVM situation is a success story from the free software point of view. LLVM became the default toolchain and compiler for many project because of its high quality and meaningful error messages (GCC anyone?). I can live without Swift, but I definitely need LLVM going forward.
> But, their anti-copyleft witch hunt goes back much further.
> It began when Richard Stallman himself famously led
> the world's first GPL enforcement effort against NeXT
This is premature. Wait and see on Swift2.0. Seems knee-jerk reaction. I mean, "Apple is not our friend"?
No for-profit is our friend. Stating the obvious doesn't reinforce the point made in the editorial that the author fears programmers will be bamboozled by Apple possibly not following through on their promises.
> Apple explicitly stated though that such released software will not be copylefted. (Apple's pathological hatred of copyleft is reasonably well documented.)
Very few new compilers/runtimes are open-sourced; this seems like a bizarre objection, and one that would cover a hell of a lot of other languages.
Very few new compilers/runtimes are open-sourced; this seems like a bizarre objection, and one that would cover a hell of a lot of other languages.
I think it's worth noting that this was originally titled "Apple is not our friend". Sheesh.
"Fortuitously, Apple eventually discovered a technically brilliant (but sadly non-copylefted) research programming language and compiler system called LLVM."
What does he mean by that ?
Did LLVM already exist in various pieces and apple "discovered" it by putting them together ?
Or is he purposely using the word "discover" to suggest that you can't invent a programming language (since programming is all reducible to math) and that new languages are merely "discovered" ?
What does he mean by that ?
Did LLVM already exist in various pieces and apple "discovered" it by putting them together ?
Or is he purposely using the word "discover" to suggest that you can't invent a programming language (since programming is all reducible to math) and that new languages are merely "discovered" ?
This reads like a very paranoid post.
This has been hashed out before in better ways, but I'm going to take a stab at simplifying the issue at hand for modern and future computing.
The developer wants freedom and so does the user. Most of us are both developers and users.
Closed code or non-foss code is geared to give developers freedom, but at the cost of user freedom. FOSS licenses such as GPLv123/LGPL favor user freedom, but at the cost of developer freedom.
For me, the bottom line is that I believe, given the trajectory of computing, FOSS is closer to protecting actual freedom of both developers and users than any alternative.
I think a good thought experiment is to imagine we are a bit further in the future, and now brain-computer interfaces are prevalent. I often joke with my boss that he would be an early adapter of "Apple-brain", but the point is that I would never plug in a brain-computer interface without having the four freedoms on it.
There is a glaring issue at hand here though, with FOSS, that I think fails to address this issue: namely "ou should also have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately in your own work or play, without even mentioning that they exist. If you do publish your changes, you should not be required to notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way."
I don't think that goes far enough. Due to our legal system, I don't only want the ability to modify my brain-computer, but I also want the ability to make sure no one but me has access to that particular source code. Generally FOSS licenses would protect me from someone copying my brain code if they failed to adhere to the FOSS license, but it does nothing to protect what I would consider proprietary brain-code.
Is your computer as it is not already an extension of your brain to some extent?
Do you have full control of it, or at least the ability to take control of it?
If no is the answer, I consider that a weakness.
Freedom comes with a price, and in this case the primary cost of freedom is a lack of features, and time and effort necessary to get a functional set of features. eg. in reality, I think I really ought to be compiling everything from source (Gentoo, etc) and checking hashes/checksums and reviewing code (maybe in an automatic way).
We all make tradeoffs, but as the future progresses, I believe very strongly that those who embrace pieces of proprietary software now will be at a large disadvantage later, and that includes companies.
Sure, Apple has the freedom to determine their licensing schemes, but do keep in mind that it affects a huge number of users (eg, actual people, instead of a company), and many users will embrace it, but I don't have any issues with FOSS proponents calling out the facts whenever a company with so large a userbase degrades user freedom, because no matter how you want to defend Apple, that's what they do.
The developer wants freedom and so does the user. Most of us are both developers and users.
Closed code or non-foss code is geared to give developers freedom, but at the cost of user freedom. FOSS licenses such as GPLv123/LGPL favor user freedom, but at the cost of developer freedom.
For me, the bottom line is that I believe, given the trajectory of computing, FOSS is closer to protecting actual freedom of both developers and users than any alternative.
I think a good thought experiment is to imagine we are a bit further in the future, and now brain-computer interfaces are prevalent. I often joke with my boss that he would be an early adapter of "Apple-brain", but the point is that I would never plug in a brain-computer interface without having the four freedoms on it.
There is a glaring issue at hand here though, with FOSS, that I think fails to address this issue: namely "ou should also have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately in your own work or play, without even mentioning that they exist. If you do publish your changes, you should not be required to notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way."
I don't think that goes far enough. Due to our legal system, I don't only want the ability to modify my brain-computer, but I also want the ability to make sure no one but me has access to that particular source code. Generally FOSS licenses would protect me from someone copying my brain code if they failed to adhere to the FOSS license, but it does nothing to protect what I would consider proprietary brain-code.
Is your computer as it is not already an extension of your brain to some extent?
Do you have full control of it, or at least the ability to take control of it?
If no is the answer, I consider that a weakness.
Freedom comes with a price, and in this case the primary cost of freedom is a lack of features, and time and effort necessary to get a functional set of features. eg. in reality, I think I really ought to be compiling everything from source (Gentoo, etc) and checking hashes/checksums and reviewing code (maybe in an automatic way).
We all make tradeoffs, but as the future progresses, I believe very strongly that those who embrace pieces of proprietary software now will be at a large disadvantage later, and that includes companies.
Sure, Apple has the freedom to determine their licensing schemes, but do keep in mind that it affects a huge number of users (eg, actual people, instead of a company), and many users will embrace it, but I don't have any issues with FOSS proponents calling out the facts whenever a company with so large a userbase degrades user freedom, because no matter how you want to defend Apple, that's what they do.
> Apple's dogged pursuit for non-copyleft replacements for copylefted software is far from new. For example, Apple has worked to create replacements for Samba so they need not ship Samba in OSX.
That is not Apple pursuing non-copyleft software. That is Apple pursuing non-GPLv3 software. If Samba had stayed GPLv2, I doubt Apple would have replaced it.
> But, their anti-copyleft witch hunt goes back much further. It began when Richard Stallman himself famously led the world's first GPL enforcement effort against NeXT, and Objective-C was liberated.
He makes it sound like it was some kind of highly adversarial situation, but here is how Stallman describes it [1]:
This is just nonsense. If NeXT/Apple had been so determined to get away from copyleft, they would have changed their Objective-C compiler from being part of GCC to being a completely separate program that took in Objective-C and translated it to plain C.
> Fortuitously, Apple eventually discovered a technically brilliant (but sadly non-copylefted) research programming language and compiler system called LLVM. Since then, Apple has sunk millions of dollars into making LLVM better. On the surface, that seems like a win for software freedom, until you look at the bigger picture: their goal is to end copyleft compilers.
Two problems here. First, as mentioned above if Apple was so determined against copyleft compilers, they would have made Objective-C a front end that output C (similar to Stroustrup's cfront for C++).
Second, he is overlooking the fact that GCC was not technically able to meet Apple's needs. For example, Core Image needs an optimizing JIT compiler that can take a chain of image filters and turn it into a single efficient filter for execution on the GPU or CPU (whichever will be faster on the particular system for the particular effects). XCode needs to parse C/C++/Objective-C code in the editor and in the debugger. In short Apple needed a modular compiler system, designed to work as a compiler toolkit from which you can pick and choose the parts needed for a particular application, and designed to be easy to interface with outside tools.
GCC was explicitly designed to not be that, and Stallman would reject changes that would make it easier to use it that way. GCC has opened up a bit to modularization and interfacing with outside tools since then, but that was directly due to competition from LLVM/Clang.
> Their goal is to pick and choose when and how programming language software is liberated.
The author's mistake here is in thinking that Apple has a goal in this area. It is far more likely that whether or not programming language software is liberated is completely orthogonal to anything Apple cares about. They are open sourcing Swift because Chris Lattner wanted to, and their lawyers did not see any problem with that.
[1] http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-...
That is not Apple pursuing non-copyleft software. That is Apple pursuing non-GPLv3 software. If Samba had stayed GPLv2, I doubt Apple would have replaced it.
> But, their anti-copyleft witch hunt goes back much further. It began when Richard Stallman himself famously led the world's first GPL enforcement effort against NeXT, and Objective-C was liberated.
He makes it sound like it was some kind of highly adversarial situation, but here is how Stallman describes it [1]:
The issue first arose when NeXT proposed to distribute
a modified GCC in two parts and let the user link them.
Jobs asked me whether this was lawful. It seemed to me
at the time that it was, following reasoning like what
you are using; but since the result was very undesirable
for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer.
What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges
would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges" and would
be very harsh toward them. He said a judge would ask whether
it is "really" one program, rather than how it is labeled.
So I went back to Jobs and said we believed his plan was not
allowed by the GPL.
The direct result of this is that we now have an Objective
C front end. They had wanted to distribute the Objective C
parser as a separate proprietary package to link with the
GCC back end, but since I didn't agree this was allowed,
they made it free.
This is just nonsense. If NeXT/Apple had been so determined to get away from copyleft, they would have changed their Objective-C compiler from being part of GCC to being a completely separate program that took in Objective-C and translated it to plain C.
> Fortuitously, Apple eventually discovered a technically brilliant (but sadly non-copylefted) research programming language and compiler system called LLVM. Since then, Apple has sunk millions of dollars into making LLVM better. On the surface, that seems like a win for software freedom, until you look at the bigger picture: their goal is to end copyleft compilers.
Two problems here. First, as mentioned above if Apple was so determined against copyleft compilers, they would have made Objective-C a front end that output C (similar to Stroustrup's cfront for C++).
Second, he is overlooking the fact that GCC was not technically able to meet Apple's needs. For example, Core Image needs an optimizing JIT compiler that can take a chain of image filters and turn it into a single efficient filter for execution on the GPU or CPU (whichever will be faster on the particular system for the particular effects). XCode needs to parse C/C++/Objective-C code in the editor and in the debugger. In short Apple needed a modular compiler system, designed to work as a compiler toolkit from which you can pick and choose the parts needed for a particular application, and designed to be easy to interface with outside tools.
GCC was explicitly designed to not be that, and Stallman would reject changes that would make it easier to use it that way. GCC has opened up a bit to modularization and interfacing with outside tools since then, but that was directly due to competition from LLVM/Clang.
> Their goal is to pick and choose when and how programming language software is liberated.
The author's mistake here is in thinking that Apple has a goal in this area. It is far more likely that whether or not programming language software is liberated is completely orthogonal to anything Apple cares about. They are open sourcing Swift because Chris Lattner wanted to, and their lawyers did not see any problem with that.
[1] http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-...
Yeah, Apple definitely doesn't like copyleft. That's okay; lots of people don't (especially larger companies – how many large companies actively release GPLd software?). It's a legitimate business decision, and there are some good arguments that support it (which you may or may not agree with).
The idea that organisations 'owe' the community copyleft software is therefore a bit foreign to me.
Furthermore:
We'll likely see pieces of Swift 2.0 thrown over the wall. But the best stuff will be kept proprietary.
That's a bit of a weird assumption. Apple's statement was the the Swift code and standard library would be open-sourced. What is the 'best stuff' that we're not going to get?
Apple's not-yet-executed move to liberate some of the Swift 2.0 code seems a tactical stunt to win over developers who currently prefer the relatively more open nature of the Android/Linux platform … the copyleft license of Linux itself provides the opportunity to keep the core operating system of Android liberated.
That's a bit flaccid. Google and the Android platform has equally went out of the way to isolate the platform from the effects of the GPL. In fact, I'm pretty sure one of the reasons Bionic (the Android libc) exists is specifically to limit the impact of GPL code on the platform. Android's use of Linux is basically a historical accident, and painting it as some kind of concerted effort towards software freedom isn't a compelling point.
TL;DR - you need to relax. Apple releasing open-source code is a good thing. We can now all benefit from using this code. Maybe you'd prefer if it were copylefted, but it's not – it's still good, and painting it as an evil move against software freedom seems like a bit of a mental stretch.