Calum, I think it's going too far to compare Apple with Microsoft. You are assuming that every company who publishes proprietary code are evil, as opposed to other "decent" companies (like SCO, for example
) who open up their source, which, by the way, are not even the majority.
Apple happens to be in that minority. Their business model is even used as an example by Eric Raymond (sorry, I do not endorse Richard Stallman's ethical views). IBM is also quite decent, without opening all of their source.
Ethical business practices existed long before the open source / free software movement started, so it is completely illogical to blame a company on that basis. As Eric Raymond said, open source only makes sense if it benefits the company, and giving away the inferface of OS X would be corporate suicide.
I already said this, but I will repeat that Microsoft is an exceptionally treacherous company, unlike most other entreprises. It is not size or convictions that make a company good or evil. It is interesting to note that M$ was just as bad even when they were small (Bill Gates, for example, gave IBM QDOS, a rip-off of CP/M, the OS of one of his own friends).
I can't resist the pun, but let's stop comparing apples with oranges.
[ May 28, 2003: Message edited by: Laukev7 ]