There's a big difference between wanting personal access to the source code and wanting to know that the source code is available should the need or desire ever arise.

I've been developing FLOSS for several decades now, but I rarely compile stuff from source anymore (except my own projects). However, the availability of the source code for the tools I use is very important to me, even if I never exercise it myself.

In addition, general access to the source code is important as a learning tool for programmers, if only "to see how it's done". You may never build such code, but being able to take a look at it can be an important foundation in the continuing education of software developers.

Like I said to the other commenter, the source code for the software being discussed already is available - by definition - and much more easily than if you had to go searching through /usr/lib. It's an absolutely moot point[0] whether Apple bundles the source code for Bash into their operating systems, for 99.99999% of intents and purposes and users.

We're not discussing whether the source code for XNU/Darwin/Mach/MacOS itself ought to be open, which is another question entirely. (Obviously everyone would sooner it be open than not open, in a first-order analysis, but, as with medical patents and the like, a proper analysis would have to ask whether it would even have existed if its source code were to be open.)

[0] Or rather a non-moot point, for the pedants.

>[ ... ] as with medical patents and the like, a proper analysis would have to ask whether it would even have existed if its source code were to be open.

The overwhelming majority of XNU/Mach was created as open source. It is quite unlikely that macOS would exist today if those components had not been created under an open source license.

> Like I said to the other commenter, the source code for the software being discussed already is available

I was replying to this remark:

> Most users – hell, most developers – do not give a toss about having the source code for software that's shipped with MacOS.

> but this point is one of the most insular HN-bubble comments I've seen...I have never spoken to anyone who's wanted or needed the source code for Bash or Zsh.

It might be in-bubble, but "I have never spoken to anyone who..." is a poor heuristic for evaluating the superiority/inferiority of a product.

I have also never spoken to anyone who needed a repair manual for a truck, but I can probably agree with the statement that truck companies that publish comprehensive repair manuals are better than truck companies that don't.

Similarly, I can guess having the source for bash or zsh probably helps people who work with them more closely than I do.

> It might be in-bubble, but "I have never spoken to anyone who..." is a poor heuristic for evaluating the superiority/inferiority of a product.

∃x→¬P(x) is a poor response to ∃x→P(x), but a good response to ∀x→P(x). In this case, the parent commenter was claiming - in context - that all end users need or benefit from having the source code to their software, so it is relevant to say that that statement is true of absolutely nobody I know.

If he were making the abstract statement that publishing the source code might benefit some people, that would be another thing. In reality, I don't think it makes any difference whether Apple bundles the source code to these programs, when the source code, by definition, is openly available, and can be accessed much more easily by Googling it much more quickly and easily than by searching for it somewhere in /usr/lib.

It'd be really great for the Nix project if up-to-date sources for what comes on macOS were available. Probably for MacPorts, too, and maybe even Homebrew.

If source code were available for the end-user applications that come with macOS, I'd give them a try, too.

My reasoning is simple - access to the source code preserves your right to repair. Since closed-source application deny that, they are inferior.