The term "developer applause" cited in a few links from the article, which the article claims is "bizarre" to use, in fact refers to literal applause - by the a

The term "developer applause" cited in a few links from the article, which the article claims is "bizarre" to use, in fact refers to literal applause - by the audience at WWDC, consisting largely of developers (fans of Apple already - not representatives of open source, whatever that means). The wording in the first two of those links (which are the exact same text on two different websites) makes this pretty clear. The rest of the article is only slightly more coherent.