Posted 02 October 2007 - 05:37 AM
There was a time when people built things for the betterment of the group not so they can separate them selves from it.
Right - in the Soviet Union and Communist China, not to mention East Germany, Cuba and North Korea. And we know how well all that turned out, don't we? Even American communal groups like the Shakers and the Oneida colony in the 19th Century sold their hand made manufactures to outsiders for a profit. At least they did until the Industrial Revolution ushered in mass produced factory goods that undercut their cost of production. Then those communities withered and died.
I dare say all these sainted open source benefactors would be a whole lot less generous with their time and work product if they had no "day" jobs to sustain them. I don't know where this myth came from that they don't need or want to make money. Well, that's humbug and hogwash. They may not make anything on their individual contributions to the various open source projects and products (though you might have noticed most open source organizations solicit monetary donations), but they all make a living somewhere, somehow. Else they would be hungry and shivering out in the rain and the cold with all the other homeless people.
Philanthropy and altruism are all well and good, but they're not free. And Apple is not now nor ever was a philanthropic enterprise. They make fine products but they will continue to do so only so long as they also make money.
Though Steve Jobs is often arrogant and sometimes presumptuous, Apple is not Big Brother - when was the last time you had to activate a copy of the Mac OS or register a copy of iLife in order to use it? For that matter, Microsoft isn't Big Brother either, though not from want of trying. Big Brother may be out there lurking in the weeds, but he does not yet run the show.
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