Open-sourcing the Apple

Fri, 17 Nov 2000 20:30:00 +0000

If you travel in geek circles, by now you have no doubt heard about Apple's beta release of OS X, a wholly new operating system for the Macintosh. That's especially true if you are a member of that subset of geeks who closely follow open-source software issues.

OS X is a much anticipated amalgam of the Mach 3.0 microkernel from Carnegie-Mellon University, and FreeBSD 3.2, a more traditional open-source Unix-compatible operating system from the FreeBSD Project. But knowing that OS X is a microkernel wrapped up in a Unix OS, which is in turn wrapped up in a whole new layer of graphical user interface (GUI) technology, doesn't tell the whole story. Is OS X just another fancy GUI-based operating desktop system like Windows or is it a more industrially useful server-centric operating system like FreeBSD or Linux-based OS's? Crafting user interfaces is Apple's widely acknowledged forte; FreeBSD technology is known to power major Internet sites like Yahoo and Sony Japan. So which is it?

Salon.com > Jordan Hubbard

Open-sourcing the Apple