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A Word on Darwin


Since yesterday’s report regarding Darwin .2’s compatibility with PowerBooks, we have been asked to post some background information clarifying the project. Darwin is the title of Apple’s first open source development effort, designed to speed and improve development of their next generation operating system, OS X. Apple describes the project as follows.

“Darwin is a complete operating system based on the foundation technologies in Mac OS X Server. It is an advanced BSD Unix system which offers advanced networking, services such as the Apache web server, and support for both Macintosh and Unix filesystems. Darwin runs on Power Macintosh and Intel PC-compatible computers.

Release Darwin .2 is the current development version, and the operating system is now available as a single binary download. The software is liscensed under the Apple Public Source Liscense (APSL). Of course, while it is a fully functional operating system, there is no GUI and it is aimed virtually exclusively for open source developers. Darwin comprises only the BSD Unix foundation layer of OS X coupled with core OS X specific technologies like network services, Netboot and OS X’s Apache implementation. Apple has also released the source code for the multi-platform capable Darwin Streaming Server (for serving QuickTime streams) and OpenPlay, a technology designed by game developers to manage cross-platform connectivity in applications, under the Darwin project.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.