Weta, ILM and Pixar were always some sort of beacon of innovation not only in visual development but also in development in general they usually pushed for standards and compatibility between different software packages, operating systems and so much more. Some of their open sourced tools are now standard like munki https://www.munki.org/. I am saddened to see that none of them could stay independent.
VFX houses avoided opening their common tools for way too long, especially after moving from SGI to Linux around the turn of the century. To their detriment, constantly on the border of bankruptcy. Blender is only just starting to get used.
The economics of using OS X for VFX work just doesn't add up. When the machines from Apple are easily double what a machine built by an integrator will cost. Add to that the hardware support has always been flaky (see: Nvidia/Apple spout causing new cards not to work).
When your house requires you to have a large influx of contact workers, you want to have the cheapest most efficient setup possible. Apple just doesn't cut the mustard here.
ILM and Pixar both started out as subsidiaries of Lucasfilm. None of them were meaningfully set up for actual independence as much to minimize risk for the companies they spawned from, and it kind of makes sense what happened to them. Parasitic companies make the most beautiful of things, but ultimately can't really be separated for very long.
Pixar has never really been independent of Disney. ILM has always been a Lucasfilm subsidiary and has continued to put out great work even after Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney.
