"I am very happy about the direction in which the Mac OS X GUI is going, although sadly many Mac users aren't interested in (or don't know about) the "lower levels" of the Macintosh Operating System. Have you ever wondered why the Terminal greets you with the words "Welcome to Darwin"? Why do BSD and Mac OS share certain bits of code? Why does Wikipedia describe Mac OS X as a graphical operating system? Today we're going to take a look at the underlying open source technology which powers your fancy Leopard OS - the hidden core set of components, named Darwin."
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Member since:2006-01-01
Moulinneuf, you are speaking in the language of the backside.
Darwin is a project that contains the underlying OS framework which OS X is built on. Darwin inherits a lot of things from NeXT and NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP. The driver model was always different in NEXTSTEP. This is not some Apple conspiracy, it's a driver model designed in the mid 80's that was "better than what was there already" because of the nature of Mach (attempting to be a Micro Kernel and not monolithic, like BSD is/was.)
OS X is an OS based on the Darwin framework. It is a seperate project that shares source, but is not directly related to Darwin outside of the fact that Apple provides *their* Darwin changes in *their* repository.
Whether you like it or not, most of your claims could fertilise my lawn.
Member since:
2005-07-06
In other words what Apple did was switch to a license away from BSD and add code but made it proprietary in order to restrict and control it's inclusion , they are also trying to suggest that there kernel was open sourced when in fact only some part was released.
No , as I said in real Open Source , there is no restricted code or license switching in order to control an addition , you may have different branding/naming and different code added but the code its always developped and available as Open Source.
[/q]Any Apple-branded proprietary libraries and drivers are not part of Darwin and thus aren't distributed freely. [/q]
That's where your wrong , they are removed in the Open Source release , there also Apple branded **derivatives** and **derivative** driver , thats why Darwin open source don't do what Darwin Mac OS X can do and don't have the same size and code.
Yes , rather its Free Software , but if one use your example it's the same as having the Linuz Kernel under APL with some proprietary adittion by Apple and the Linux kernel GPL by the GNU/Linux community , the difference with BSD is that the GNU/Linux community invested in it's kernel so that it's the proprietary version who is behind or very close , where as the BSD community as not invested in there own kernel to be on par with Apple. Also in real Open Source Red Har and Novell and the other commercial contribute code so that Debian and others can benefit from it too and vice cersa.
[/q]The same applies here: the base system (Darwin) is open-source, there just are proprietary libraries, drivers and applications running on top of it. [/q]
No , they are added to Darwin in Mac OS X , not on top of it. That's where you and your friends are getting confused here , code is removed from Mac OS X Darwin to Open Source Darwin. Also the addition on top of it of the derivative by Apple is also a problem under Real Open Source. Because your supposed to make and contribute Open Source addition.
But the real problem is not Apple or what they do in itself. It's what the BSD let them do and what BSD do not do to be on par with itself aka Apple Mac OS X and Darwin so called Open Source.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Diagram_of_Mac_OS_X_archite...
BSD as nothing as complete or as close as the above , only talking in Darwin.
Hence Darwin is what BSD could have been.