By Rachel Chalmers
Apple Computer Inc appears to have become the latest titan to give away the crown jewels. On Tuesday March 16 the company announced the launch of Darwin, an open source operating system based on the foundation layers of the new Mac OS X Server platform. With the release of Mac OS X, the Macintosh operating system finally gets the protected memory and pre-emptive multi- tasking that operating system rivals have boasted for years. The software is available now in the US and Canada; the rest of the world will have to wait until April.
Consisting of the MACH 2.5 microkernel and a full BSD 4.4 environment, Darwin implements most of the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) APIs that make Unix server applications portable. At first glance, that makes it a credible alternative to Linux or possibly even Solaris on the server – especially given that Mac OS X Server also boasts a Java Virtual Machine (JDK 1.1.6). Darwin is available for free download under an open source license called the Apple Public License. That license has been rubber-stamped by open source luminaries Brian Behlendorf of the Apache Project and Eric Raymond of the Open Source Initiative.
Apple has a proud tradition of innovating in ways that shake up the computer industry. They’ve done it again with this announcement, Raymond said in a statement. At a time when the open source and free software communities are divided over the interpretation of commercial open source licenses: We can say that Apple gets it, Raymond told Wired News. The license is compatible [with OSI’s definition of open source] and we hope it will develop into a model for other operating system vendors.
Others are not so sure. The jury is still out, since many open source developers said they need time to read and assess Apple’s license agreement. It looks like Apple is trying to get Linux developers onto their hardware, observed Bruce Perens, the leader of an open source faction that has criticized Raymond and the OSI for pandering to corporate interests at the expense of the free software movement. Like SGI, Sun and Netscape before it, Apple may be using its proprietary code base as bait to attract open source developers. Once it has them, the theory runs, it can slash its internal software development costs.
Interestingly enough, Perens once worked for Jobs at Pixar Animation Studios and the connections don’t end there. Mac OS X combines features from the current Mac OS with others derived from Next Computer Inc’s NextStep. After an extended flirtation with Jean-Louis Gassee’s Be Inc, Apple acquired Next at the end of 1996. Both Apple and Next were launched by Jobs, and after the Next acquisition, Jobs somehow became the interim chief executive officer of Apple – a position he holds to this day. Darwin is, then, absolutely Jobs’ baby. Given the contentious and fiercely competitive environment in which it finds itself, the infant OS could hardly be better named.
