On Wed, 5 Dec 2012, Curt, WE7U wrote:
On Wed, 5 Dec 2012, Chip Griffin wrote:
OS X is based upon the Mach kernel. Certain parts from FreeBSD's and
NetBSD's implementation of Unix were incorporated in NeXTSTEP, the core of
Mac OS X. NeXTSTEP was the graphical, object-oriented, and UNIX-based
operating system developed by Steve Jobs' company NeXT after he left Apple
in 1985.[14] While Jobs was away from Apple, Apple tried to create a
"next-generation" OS through the Taligent,Copland and Gershwin projects,
with little success.[15]
OS X's core is a POSIX compliant operating system (OS) built on top of the
XNU kernel, with standard Unix facilities available from thecommand line
interface. Apple has released this family of software as a free and open
source operating system named Darwin.
If they've released it all as open-source, then it must not be based on
original BSD code and therefore doesn't require licensing. My bad.
Found this with a quick Google search (more complete):
http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_xnu.html
In the "BSD" section it says: "XNU's BSD component uses FreeBSD as the
primary reference codebase (although some code might be traced to other
BSDs). Darwin 7.x (Mac OS X 10.3.x) uses FreeBSD 5.x."
A bit more from Wikipedia (XNU):
"XNU is the computer operating system kernel that Apple Inc. acquired and
developed for use in the Mac OS X operating system and released as free and open
source software as part of the Darwin operating system. XNU is an acronym for X is
Not Unix.[1]
Originally developed by NeXT for the NeXTSTEP operating system, XNU was a
hybrid kernel combining version 2.5 of the Mach kernel developed at Carnegie
Mellon University with components from 4.3BSD and an object-oriented API for
writing drivers called Driver Kit.
After Apple acquired NeXT, the Mach component was upgraded to 3.0, the BSD
components were upgraded with code from the FreeBSD project and the Driver Kit was
replaced with a C++ API for writing drivers called I/O Kit."
So it appears they originally based it on 4.3BSD but then later swapped out the
BSD bits for FreeBSD code and could later release it as open-source.
--
Curt, WE7U. http://wetnet.net/~we7u
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of
knowledge. -Stephen Hawking
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