Totally irrelevant. The article is about whether Apple contributes back to the open source community, not whether or not their platform is "open".
If you believe the two are unrelated, then we have widely differing beliefs about why Open Source is important. Open Source and Free Software is about freedom to do what you want with the software you use...Apple is not fond of that idea, and never has been.
Sending money, and/or some snippets of code, to Open Source developers is wonderful...but it doesn't make a company a friend to Open Source or a friend to freedom. Apple is not an Open Source friendly company. They're not even an open standards friendly company, except where it suits them.
And, I guess I need to point out that WebKit is not some generous gift to the world. Apple was required, by law, to release the source they produced. That they did so is not something to be praised. It's just doing business legally.
So, sure, Apple contributes to some Open Source projects...and that's a good thing. But Apple is hostile to openness on many fronts, and that is a bad thing.
So is Apple required by law to maintain webkit.org with extensive documentation, a frequently updated blog, nightly builds, an active IRC channel with hundreds of users, a public bug tracker, etc? Are they required by law to fund LLVM development?
My point is that Apple does much more than contribute "snippets of code". Perhaps not every aspect of their business lives up to your ideal, but I think most of their involvement in open source projects does.
So, sure, Apple contributes to some Open Source projects...and that's a good thing. But Apple is hostile to openness on many fronts, and that is a bad thing.
I like that Apple is involved in Open Source, and I'm sure WebKit is more awesome than race cars and firetrucks. And I don't begrudge anyone making money from their software--we have proprietary offerings along-side our predominantly Open Source core. Nothing wrong with making money. I just find Apple's hostility to open standards and basic user freedoms, particularly in the mobile space but also in music and media distribution, to be wholly at odds with so many people considering Apple to be a benevolent force in the technology industry.
When Microsoft can, without irony, claim to provide more open solutions to many common problems than another company, it's a really big red flag. If Microsoft is evil (and historically, on many counts, they are), then any company that is worse than Microsoft is...well...worse than Microsoft. Microsoft actually does offer significantly more openness in their mobile platform than Apple. If you don't consider this a serious problem (given that mobile devices are the future of computing, and the only way a huge number of people will ever get to the Internet), then we'll just have to agree to disagree. Nothing is going to convince me that Apple's animosity to openness on mobile devices is not a dangerous move backward for the mobile industry.
If you believe the two are unrelated, then we have widely differing beliefs about why Open Source is important. Open Source and Free Software is about freedom to do what you want with the software you use...Apple is not fond of that idea, and never has been.
Sending money, and/or some snippets of code, to Open Source developers is wonderful...but it doesn't make a company a friend to Open Source or a friend to freedom. Apple is not an Open Source friendly company. They're not even an open standards friendly company, except where it suits them.
And, I guess I need to point out that WebKit is not some generous gift to the world. Apple was required, by law, to release the source they produced. That they did so is not something to be praised. It's just doing business legally.
So, sure, Apple contributes to some Open Source projects...and that's a good thing. But Apple is hostile to openness on many fronts, and that is a bad thing.