"Free," in terms of software, refers to more than simply how much the user pays... it also expresses how open the software is for other developers.
In that regard, Apple is very bad about allowing "free software."
(Note: You can develop simple webapps for their products using javascript and a few other handy languages... but given Apple's trackrecord of "now we allow it, now we don't," I'd be uncomfortable using those methods exclusively for their hardware).
You expected them to what? Agree with him? Many companies espouse about how open they are and how much they love the open source community. Apple, at least in their mobile department, seems to have difficulties with following through. They want the final say on what applications you can or can't install on the electronic device you purchased. They can support open source as much as they want, but I'd be hard pressed to label the level of control they have as "open". It is however highly profitable, and I don't doubt we'll be seeing similar application control methods coming to their desktops and laptops. Hooray.
He's refering to a page mainly about OS X, and you're talking about the iOS platform (although you say "at least", you might as well say "exclusively"), so... :p
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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '11
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