I tend to agree with you, but I also think it's important to remember that people are doing this free work entirely on their own. They want to do it for free. As much as I'd like to see the effort go toward a hardware OEM that deserves it, the labor/work doesn't exist and merely needs allocation. It exists specifically because people want to do it for Apple's hardware. The choice is likely between nothing or Apple, not between <OEM> or Apple. From a purely Linux perspective, this work helps make Linux even more of a force, so there's definitely reason to appreciate it :-)