CNET News: Will Real Feast Where Apple Failed?

” Many have compared RealNetworks and its establishment last
week of the Helix open-source initiative to Netscape
Communications, which in 1998 was the first significant software
company to put its proprietary product into open-source
development, only to languish.

“But among the three major streaming media competitors, Apple
Computer was the first to make the leap to open source–a move that
also offers something of a cautionary tale for the curative powers
of such efforts.

“In April 1999, a month after it established the Darwin
open-source organization that would give birth to its OS X
operating system, Apple revealed the source code to parts of the
QuickTime streaming format and invited developers and companies to
use and disseminate it…”

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