As pointed out in other replies, Apple is working on clang because it doesn't want to deal with the GPL (unless you own Apple stock, you're the one losing because of this decision), and WebKit because it's derived from LGPL code.

How much work is Apple putting into making Darwin a usable Free Software OS? Versus how much work have Red Hat, Canonical, Novell, IBM etc. have put into making Linux available in a number of different, free distributions? The reason all has to do with GPL and copyleft. There is very little incentive for companies to invest in BSD code, and no disincentive for them to steal it. If Linux wasn't GPLed, it wouldn't be where it is today.

There's nothing wrong with what Apple is doing. However, if you think that somehow Apple releasing some of their code under the BSD justifies restricting their end-users to their locked-in App Store and their fight against the GPL, there is something morally off with your thinking.

Claiming that this makes the BSD a better choice than the GPL shows that you don't understand that Apple doesn't care about you and your open source; they'll take whatever is convenient. You're the one losing out, and you're justifying it to yourself as a good thing.

It's less confusing/misleading than free-as-in-beer vs free-as-in-speech vs free-as-in-dammit-you-cant-do-that-tivo.

> Apple is working on clang because it doesn't want to deal with the GPL (unless you own Apple stock, you're the one losing because of this decision)

Have you seen the sh##t g++ provides for error messages? clang++ is a massive improvement.

> There is very little incentive for companies to invest in BSD code, and no disincentive for them to steal it.

Which is of course why http://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ only includes people working out of their mothers' basements, why http://www.sqlite.org/index.html doesn't show any corporate sponsors, and why BSD died years ago...

> If Linux wasn't GPLed, it wouldn't be where it is today.

Yeah, I think the original license had something about "no commercial use" in it.

> think that somehow Apple releasing some of their code under the BSD justifies restricting their end-users to their locked-in App Store

I don't see how there's any relation between those?

> shows that you don't understand that Apple doesn't care about you and your open source; they'll take whatever is convenient

"Caring" is an emotion, which organizations don't seem to have.

Companies like Google are releasing all sorts of code under BSD on the off chance it gets used, or maybe even improved, or maybe even becomes some sort of de facto standard. Releasing the code under GPL would mostly disincentivize these behaviors.

There's also no reason why you can't dual-license a product, or license different parts of the same codebase under different licenses (for example, I release the unit test files in my Free Software projects into the public domain).

I know it's a strawman argument, but if you feel superior to Apple, how come you didn't come up with the iPhone innovation? Saying Apple doesn't care about me when they obsess about designing amazing products that blow away anything that existed before is a little big disingenuous.

As a funny sidenote, one could say that if you choose GPL you need to consult your legal-department. But if you choose BSD you don't even need a legal-department.