...and now Apple has altered the deal and we must pray they do not alter it further. Disgusting. Predictable, expected, unsurprising -- but still disgusting.
There is a free alternative which is better in many ways and has an unlimited supply.
The only reason Apple has a lead in software is that they have made their closed source model deliver end-user benefits at a faster rate than the open source alternatives.
There is no reason this needs to remain true, and there are a lot of signs that it will not continue.
Only "free" in terms of literal monetary payments to acquire the operating system. But the choice between Apple's stack and other Linux stacks has many trade-offs in terms of time, support, documentation, complexity, transition cost, etc.
The only thing stopping those trade-offs being changed is people’s willingness to make the changes.
Based on a lot of criticism of MacOS I see here, some of that is because people don’t actually want to change the trade offs.