[phaus]

I'm glad that T-Mobile has become a customer focused company in recent months, but let's not forget that just a short while ago, they were just like all of the other major carriers.

T-Mobile had a sudden change of heart not because they give a shit about their customers, its because their network wasn't good enough for people to put up with typical carrier bullshit. As a normal carrier, they were losing money and customers so fast that they had to either change or go out of business.

I highly doubt they would have made the same philosophical changes if they had been successful doing things the scummy way.

[tytso]

I've always had really good customer service with T-mobile. I remember once time almost 5-10 years ago when I needed help getting the right AT commands to connect to GPRS using Linux. The help desk heard me use the appropriate technical terms (AT commands, chat script, GPRS, etc.) and immediately forwarded me to the level 3 help desk folks who actually could handle technical questions, and they helped me even when I told them I was using Linux and could set up my own chat/expect script once I knew the required parameteres for their GPRS network.

Compare and contrast that with my previous experience with AT&T, and there was absolutely no comparison.

[wyclif]

Yes, disagree with the parent for this reason. I've been with T-Mobile since 1999/2000-ish when they were known as VoiceStream (they renamed it T-Mobile in July 2002). That was my personal phone. When I used company-issued phones on AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, the difference was readily apparent: T-Mobile always had better quality customer service than the other carriers, more appealing plans, easier to change plans when you wanted, &c.

[cracker_jacks]

T-Mobile had a sudden change of heart because they had a sudden change in CEO in 2012. He's the one that's been pushing the 'uncarrier' movement within the company.

[mortenjorck]

John Legere is... interesting. Check out the original 'uncarrier' press event from this summer: http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/26/4148836/stop-bullshit-says...

  "Carriers are really nice to you... once every 23 months.
  This is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard in my 
  entire life. Do you have any idea how much you're paying?"

This is not a quote from an angry blog commenter. This the CEO of the United States' fourth largest mobile service provider speaking at a press conference.

Refreshingly bizarre.

[phaus]

It is refreshing to see a telecom executive make a statement like that, but its hard not to feel as if it might just be a clever marketing tactic.

Apparently he used to be the Chief Executive of AT&T Asia. I wonder how cellular service plans are structured there. I know that Europe has traditionally favored the no-contract plans that are just now starting to get attention in the U.S., I wonder if perhaps Asia does too.

[wyclif]

Refreshingly honest, I would say.

[jamesbritt]

but let's not forget that just a short while ago, they were just like all of the other major carriers.

I've been using T-Mobile for five years or so and have always had really good customer service.

[alive-or-not]

Same as Apple - when they were almost dead they had to use and contribute to open source projects and treat the customer fair. Nowadays they are making it clear all iThings out there belong to Apple and working hard to wall Mac OSX as well.

[X-Istence]

Apple still contributes to open source A LOT.

[kunai]

Barely. OpenDarwin is dead. WebKit was stolen from KHTML. CUPS has barely any development anymore. Apart from LLVM, what have they really contributed to OSS? Okay, it's more than Microsoft, but net contribution is still nothing compared to Google or Sun (when they were still alive).

[matthewmacleod]

KHTML was not stolen - it was used as the basis for Webkit in compliance with its licence, which is exactly how Open Source is supposed to work.

Have a look at http://www.apple.com/opensource/ - which outlines the Open Source components that Apple use and contribute to. You're right - it might not be as much as some other companies (though I don't know if it's practically less than Google or Sun) but they are consistently among the largest participants in Open Source among large tech companies.

[dylandrop]

I think my biggest beef with them is that they tend to make up for their small amount of OSS in a negative way by being such patent trolls. This is more true of their presence in the hardware world.

[awad]

Also note that Google's Blink project did the exact same

[mikeash]

WebKit is itself open source, so you can't discount that just because it was derived from another open source project.

Aside from LLVM/clang and WebKit (both of which are significant enough to deserve massive accolades all by themselves), you also have stuff like launchd (which didn't catch on outside Apple, but hardly their fault), libdispatch, and mDNS.

But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

[idupree]

Historical note: Launchd might have caught on if Apple had open-sourced it sooner.

The author of the Upstart init system, Scott James Remnant, wrote in 2006,

"How does [Upstart] differ from launchd?

launchd is the replacement init system used in MacOS X developed as an “Open Source” project by Apple. For much of its life so far, the licence has actually been entirely non-free and thus it has only become recently interesting with the licence change.

[...]

Had the licence been sufficiently free at the point we began development of our own system, we would probably have extended launchd rather than implement our own. At the point Apple changed the licence, our own system was already more suitable for our purposes."

http://netsplit.com/2006/08/26/upstart-in-universe/

[eonil]

So what's the contribution of Google, Sun and MS? It's you who should show example if you want to claim.

Do you have any access to Google Search API? Or BigTable source? How about Google Maps? Google Apps? What Google is releasing is "Chrome" which stole(as like your word) from WebKit, and Android. (which actually stolen from Sun, so still in lawsuit)

Well there's more. V8, Dart and Go. Maybe bunch of funny dead projects can be included. But I don't see much difference with LLVM/Clang case. Let's treat them just apart.

IMO, Google is worse than Facebook or Twitter in perspective of server-side software contribution.

[judk]

Google is a major committer to Linux and to Java Guava, the premier general purpose library (standard library extension/replacement). And they paid Guido to work on Python for years.

[phaus]

Wasn't it Google that made a huge donation to Kubuntu after Ubuntu pulled the plug on supporting them?

[gaadd33]

From Sun? You mean Java, Solaris, DTrace, ZFS, etc?

[rdtsc]

> Apple still contributes to open source A LOT.

Oh wow you capitalized "A LOT". I am sure you'll be able to list at least 30 large known open source projects actively maintained or contributed to by Apple.

[esw]

>I'm glad that T-Mobile has become a customer focused company in recent months

I was a T-Mobile customer until the first iPhone came out, and they were fantastic back then. I'd switch back now if it weren't for the fact that they have lousy coverage in Vermont.

[lobster_johnson]

Interestingly, just a couple of months ago T-Mobile had great online customer service -- you could log into your account and open a chat with a customer support person. They removed that in favour of a generic "support community" based on Jive. So now you have to "start a discussion" if you have a problem, or, annoyingly, call their support line.

[chimeracoder]

> I'm glad that T-Mobile has become a customer focused company in recent months, but let's not forget that just a short while ago, they were just like all of the other major carriers.

Not just that, but in other countries (not the US) where they have the dominant market position, they seem just as despised as Verizon and AT&T are in the US.

Not that I'm complaining; I enjoy the consumer-side benefits of competition as much as the next guy - it's just good to remember exactly where things stand.

[rscale]

Why T-Mobile made the change is unimportant to me. I care that they made the change, and that they committed to it via zero lock-in contracts. If I feel that I'm not getting sufficient value at some point in the future, I can simply walk away from T-Mobile without spending $325/line in termination fees.

And as for the network, I'm fortunate that it's not a trade-off for me. T-Mobile's coverage has proven superior to AT&T's for my precise work/home/travel combination.