I don't have anything intelligent to add to the discourse of Why Apple Won't Open Source Its Apps. I did just switch to Apple from a Windows laptop (where I primarily used open sources applications... well... besides the operating system). After getting the Macbook Pro, I immersed myself with Safari/Mail/iCal/iChat. I used Firefox. It was slow. I used Camino. It was much better. I used Thunderbird/GCalendar/Adium.
I've settled on using Camino/Thunderbird/Adium/GCalendar.
It would make no difference to me, as a Mac user, if Apple released Safari/Mail/iCal/iChat as open source.
Well, it would make a difference if after open sourcing these items they suddenly became way better; and tons of people wrote blog entries and articles about it and enticed me to switch back. But, right now, I prefer the open source alternatives (I doubt I am the only one). I just need a nice GUI and "just works" hardware/software that wraps around an xterm and the open source "productivity" apps I use.
OSX/Apple-hardware-and-quality is just my shell to a terminal window and open source software. I have no idea how that plays out in the ideas of Apple open sourcing some of their software; I'm just saying that this is how I am using it. It makes no difference to me what Apple does with the source code to their "productivity" software.
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