Another explanation is that it's too radical of an idea even for HN. I see no reason a judge in a hypothetical anti-trust case against Apple couldn't give it a choice between ceasing operations and open sourcing its whole technology stack.

Because it's divorced from reality. In no world will volunteers maintain parity with a trillion dollar hardware and software company covered by a multitude of patents.

Is this a joke? I was obviously calling back both to PC compatibles and UNIX compatibles. Both open systems have completely dominated the closed systems. It is obvious that Apple is doing everything to prevent this.

Yeah and look at the raging success of Linux on the desktop.

Enduring success at the very least.