I wonder whether Apple is planning on open-sourcing the code. If they want it for internal use, then open sourcing it could make the whole project less expensive.
As optimistic as you might be, I have to imagine the odds of that happening are exceptionally small.
While you could point to the pulling of downloads, and pulling of GitHub accounts as a transitional 'rebranding', I just don't see what incentive Apple has to open source a system that is useful to bigger players and generates a lot of revenue.
Is it worth it for Apple to deny the industry a cutting edge database with the only cost being a single day's profits or less? Of course it is.
And you're spot on about the cost of development. I'd imagine 12 - 48 hours of profits from Apple would be enough to fund its database R&D for the next 10 years.
