Apple Releases Darwin 9 Source Code
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 6th Nov 2007 21:38 UTC, submitted by SK8T
BSD and Darwin derivatives Apple has released the source code to Darwin 9, the underlying open source operating system ofMac OS X 10.5 Leopard. "Darwin is the open source UNIX-based foundation of Mac OS X. Darwin integrates a number of technologies, including the Mach 3.0 microkernel, operating system services based on FreeBSD 5 UNIX, high-performance TCP/IP networking, and support for multiple integrated file systems. Because the design of Darwin is highly modular, you can dynamically add device drivers, networking extensions, and new file systems."
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Sounds cool to me!
by neozeed on Tue 6th Nov 2007 22:16 UTC
neozeed
Member since:
2006-03-03

I'm downloading XNU now.. It appears that they have kept the i386 code in there.... I guess its time to build it....

Edited 2007-11-06 22:19

Reply Score: 1

Full Hardware-Support + Freedom?
by Roots on Tue 6th Nov 2007 22:45 UTC
Roots
Member since:
2007-11-06

So ist it possible to have the Hardware of say, a MacBook, fully supported, while not giving up any of the 4 freedoms which should come with software, by using Darwin+GNU+Xorg+Gnome/KDE/Whatever?

And by full hardware-support I mean EVERYTHING more or less out of the box. Hotkeys, webcam, suspending, you name it.

Has anyone experiences with that or are there tutorials how to achieve this on the web?

Reply Score: 1

No
by Wes Felter on Tue 6th Nov 2007 23:29 UTC in reply to "Full Hardware-Support + Freedom?"
Wes Felter Member since:
2005-11-15

There are usually some closed-source drivers, not to mention Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext.

Reply Score: 1

Laurence Member since:
2007-03-26

What you're asking really isn't any different to Windows PC/Laptop buyers who install Linux of their system as, at the end of the day, Mac hardware is just PC hardware.

Reply Score: 2

cyclops Member since:
2006-03-12

"So ist it possible to have the Hardware of say, a MacBook, fully supported, while not giving up any of the 4 freedoms which should come with software, by using Darwin+GNU+Xorg+Gnome/KDE/Whatever?"

No because The new licensing does not permit that.

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/13/1120215

Look at the new APSL Rules where your license to their source can be revoked at any time.

Reply Score: 1

Almafeta Member since:
2007-02-22

Looks similar to the Microsoft Reference License to me...

Reply Score: 2

KugelKurt Member since:
2005-07-06

"The Apple Public Source License (APSL) version 2.0 qualifies as a free software license."

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html

Reply Score: 1

broken_symlink Member since:
2005-07-06

i tried doing that with a g4 powerbook and darwin 8. all i can say is good luck! a bunch of drivers that ship with darwin are binary only, such as the broadcom ones. on top of that there are no apps in userland to configure wireless. never got x to work either. i'm not even sure if they include suspend support in darwin. maybe i should try again.

Reply Score: 3

An interesting statistic...
by baadger on Tue 6th Nov 2007 22:54 UTC
baadger
Member since:
2006-08-29

Here's an interesting statistic, the /bsd folder of the XNU kernel tar ball accounts for 49.2% of the untarred size on disk.

I'm actually surprised that so much of the source is C++...

Edited 2007-11-06 22:57

Reply Score: 3

Well done apple
by Adurbe on Tue 6th Nov 2007 23:46 UTC
Adurbe
Member since:
2005-07-06

Lets give credit where it is due. Leopard is just out and already they have released the darwin

Well done apple!

Reply Score: 12

RE: Well done apple
by searly on Thu 8th Nov 2007 13:23 UTC in reply to "Well done apple"
searly Member since:
2006-02-27

As somebody already mentioned "Darwin is not really that useful to any of the end users" ... so what does that mean ... call me a cynic but apple simply uses the opensource community to develop their product with giving back as little as possible.

Reply Score: 1

RE[2]: Well done apple
by Adurbe on Thu 8th Nov 2007 19:14 UTC in reply to "RE: Well done apple"
Adurbe Member since:
2005-07-06

Darwin is a perfectly capable OS in its own right. Simply because it is not as POPULAR as linux nor other BSD flavors does not detract from that

If I had the time (or ability!) I could create a system based on it just as good as any linux distro or OSX itself

Reply Score: 2

RE[3]: Well done apple
by Blackwizard on Fri 9th Nov 2007 12:48 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Well done apple"
Blackwizard Member since:
2007-10-11

And in which it would be '''better''' than average Linux distribution or PC-BSD?

Reply Score: 1

what does this mean?
by Damind on Wed 7th Nov 2007 00:14 UTC
Damind
Member since:
2006-06-08

I am not sure what this means? Can someone take the source and do the same thing that CentOS did with RH?

Before you apple guys get defensive I am just asking.

Reply Score: 1

RE: what does this mean?
by whartung on Wed 7th Nov 2007 00:22 UTC in reply to "what does this mean?"
whartung Member since:
2005-07-06

I am not sure what this means? Can someone take the source and do the same thing that CentOS did with RH?


Simply put, no.

Darwin != Mac OS X, rather it's the kernel and much of the base, system level userland. But you won't find things like the Finder or the Dock, or even the windowing system in the source code.

It's more like a basic BSD distribution, but without as large of a ports directory.

Reply Score: 6

RE[2]: what does this mean?
by zizban on Wed 7th Nov 2007 00:43 UTC in reply to "RE: what does this mean?"
zizban Member since:
2005-07-06

I use Mac OS X all the time as well as several Unixes and Darwin by itself isn't really that useful to an end user.

And there is DarwinPorts for it, if want ported software.

Reply Score: 1

RE[2]: what does this mean?
by Oliver on Thu 8th Nov 2007 00:36 UTC in reply to "RE: what does this mean?"
Oliver Member since:
2006-07-15

But on the other hand, try to run the eyecand without it *g*

Reply Score: 1

RE: what does this mean?
by Sabon on Wed 7th Nov 2007 00:44 UTC in reply to "what does this mean?"
Sabon Member since:
2005-07-06

Separate anything that is the OS (BSD) and what is the GUI (Apple).

Anything that is BSD is included. Anything that is Mac GUI and things that support that is not.

Reply Score: 2

RE: what does this mean?
by google_ninja on Wed 7th Nov 2007 03:03 UTC in reply to "what does this mean?"
google_ninja Member since:
2006-02-05

There was an OpenDarwin initiative going on awhile back, but they closed up shop because of a lack of enthusiasm, and not really wanting to be a host for Free OSX projects. The only real reason Darwin is good to have open is for debugging and educational purposes, and of course for people to write drivers for those of us who go the Hackintosh way...

Reply Score: 3

RE[2]: what does this mean?
by Nossie on Wed 7th Nov 2007 06:59 UTC in reply to "RE: what does this mean?"
Nossie Member since:
2007-07-31

is it not also a good thing for those that use APE and for companies like intech that do the hi-cap drivers for large capacity drives on older G4s?

I ask this out of curiosity... is this true kernel access rather than just the sdk? or is it less complete than that.

Reply Score: 1

obsidian
Member since:
2007-05-12

This is a good move by Apple, but sheesh, the license is verbose!

Given that much of the code comes from FreeBSD anyway, would it have been difficult for them to have released this code under a BSD license? I wouldn't have thought that would be much of a "risk" to them, but I may be wrong.... :-)

Anyone else think the license is too long, and a BSD license should have been used?

Reply Score: 2

tyrione Member since:
2005-11-21

I'd love for someone on the FreeBSD team to quantify how much work they have contributed to Darwin before claiming they have for Darwin 9.

Reply Score: 2

vermaden Member since:
2006-11-18

"I'd love for someone on the FreeBSD team to quantify how much work they have contributed to Darwin before claiming they have for Darwin 9."

sed s/FreeBSD/Darwin/g ;)

Edited 2007-11-07 09:31

Reply Score: 2

kaiwai Member since:
2005-07-06

I'd love for someone on the FreeBSD team to quantify how much work they have contributed to Darwin before claiming they have for Darwin 9.


What are you blathering on about - Apple claims that they use code from FreeBSD - in other words, Apple has pulled code off the FreeBSD, not FreeBSD submitting code to Darwin.

Its a know fact that XNU uses BSD code in there, and it has been updated over the years using the latest FreeBSD code - and Apple submit the changes back, NetBSD incorporating a lot of the msdosfs improvements - for example.

Reply Score: 4

Oliver Member since:
2006-07-15

In fact Steve is using BSD as base since BSD4.4 in NextStep and there is even some NetBSD code in it. Sometimes Apple is even commiting some code to FreeBSD (some Apple developers have got commit right in FreeBSD), some weeks ago for example (MAC). Nothing unusual, but it doesn't fit to the usual theories about the evil scheme of these big companies ;-)

Reply Score: 2

Why does it matter?
by alcibiades on Wed 7th Nov 2007 07:49 UTC
alcibiades
Member since:
2005-10-12

Don't really understand why this matters one way or the other. You release the updated source to something which is not being used in previous versions because its essentially unusable. So what?

Maybe it allows Cupertino to more plausibly offer the party line that in some way OSX is more open than Windows? Not that it is, its just differently but equally closed. That is one of the party lines one comes across. Is that it, is it just a marketing thing?

I was hoping to discover from the comments what we can use this for, but the answer still seems to be nothing.

Reply Score: 4

RE: Why does it matter?
by rayiner on Wed 7th Nov 2007 08:20 UTC in reply to "Why does it matter?"
rayiner Member since:
2005-07-06

The Darwin source code is entirely usable (it's not crippled in any way), it just doesn't get a lot of use. Does the lack of users make the code less open? APSL 2.0 is an OSI-certified open source license. You can download the code, modify it, distribute it, include it in your own programs, etc. The Windows source code is only available under a Reference license, to businesses or academic institutions who pay for the privilege. They are not "equally closed" by any stretch of the imagination.

Reply Score: 5

Hackintosh
by Brmbolec on Wed 7th Nov 2007 08:11 UTC
Brmbolec
Member since:
2005-07-23

Hmm and now they can start to write drivers for Leopard running on Hackintosh...

Reply Score: 1

great
by SK8T on Wed 7th Nov 2007 13:43 UTC
SK8T
Member since:
2006-06-01

I think this was a good step.

The developers can optimize the drivers for the kernel in a better way, because now they can look into the source code and match the drivers really smooth to the kernel.

Also it offers the possibility that bugs could be found in the code because now a lot of more eyes are looking at it.

In my eyes a opertunity for a higher quality for apples custormers.

Reply Score: 1

4.1 MB
by karudzo on Thu 8th Nov 2007 00:17 UTC
karudzo
Member since:
2006-07-15

If you re-compile it without debug enabled it drops down to 4.1MB (from approx. 8MB or so). Perhaps it's purely subjective, but each time I've booted with this stripped down kernel after building it (the last 4 kernels or so from Apple), the system seems more responsive.

Reply Score: 1

What are the major changes?
by pica on Thu 8th Nov 2007 13:23 UTC
pica
Member since:
2005-07-10

Any high level summary apart of component version lists?

Reply Score: 1

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