I worked at Apple on OS X server in various capacities for a few years, and really loved the experience. As an open-source user and advocate, I was really sad there because they have a very hostile and defensive position about open source (which is a very reasonable stance, in my perspective).

The fact that there aren't any prolific bloggers, open source contributors or HN commentators is an artifact that the company does not encourage anyone to do that -- in fact, they actively discourage anyone that isn't involved in open source work on Webkit or Obj-C or Swift from talking about their work. For better or worse, they still have a culture of secrecy around their products.

For what it's worth, I really enjoyed my time there and wouldn't trade it for anything else; I worked with a lot of fabulous teams, learned a lot, and got to build some really amazing stuff.

How is it reasonable for them to have a hostile and defensive position in relation to open source when so much of their software is either built upon or enabled by open source?

It's reasonable within their own worldview, which is secretive and closed. I will gladly admit, that was one of the largest driving factors for me leaving the company.

A thing can be unethical and still be reasonable.

You can twist the definitions of words to anything you want.

I worked at Apple for more than 10 years in various roles (have the Glass apple). Some of them were a grind, some were awesome, overall it was great and I'd do many the jobs again. A ton of the people I worked with were sharp, interesting, and entertaining. The corporate culture is generally fun, the pay could be better, but the stock options and stock purchase plan made up for it, the benefits are excellent, the food is awesome, and the campuses are generally pretty nice (some are great, some are merely good).

The culture is strongly one of not talking about working at Apple while employed so not many people will discuss it online, especially if they like their jobs. The culture of secrecy is one of those things that I never was bothered by, since it's just the norm.

Some orgs. are much better to work for than others, with around ten thousand employees in hundreds of teams, there's not many ways to reasonably generalize about what it's like to work there - different jobs can result in incredibly different experiences. The guy in the article was an AppleCare program manager dealing with OSV support centers, a job I'd never sign up for ever, since it's a corporate grind that's inherently tied to interdepartmental politics and squabbling with OSVs.

I've responded elsewhere in the comments about my positive experiences (just ⌘+F) but I think the main reason people aren't typically in "public" about their role at Apple is because Apple has a secretive culture. You're just expected to not talk Apple's business, including what you work on, to anyone outside of Apple (or even people inside Apple if they're not disclosed on your project.)

Trust me, complaints about this come up a lot inside Apple. I'd love to go to conferences and talk about the tech we're working on. (Even if just to get more hires!) I'd love to blog about it. I'd love to contribute to open source projects. But it's just not what we do here, in general. (Hell, I had to make a throwaway just to post this on HN.) It's definitely my biggest complaint about my job, and it's definitely kept us from being able to hire good talent.