Filed under: OS, Open Source, UNIX / BSD
Clarification: Apple has not closed the Intel-based Darwin kernel
OSNews is reporting that Ernest Prabhakar, Apple's Open Source and Open Standards product manager, has stated in the Fed-Talk mailing that Apple has not actually closed Mac OS X's Darwin kernel for the Intel version of the OS; they simply haven't released it yet. Speculation about Apple closing the kernel arose from the fact that other non-kernel Darwin sources actually have been released, and the previous PowerPC-based kernel is still available as open source as well.Ernest wanted to make sure that tech media didn't confuse 'speculation' with 'fact'. A good lesson we all could benefit from.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John Muir said 6:45PM on 5-21-2006
Learn something? ... Us? Yeah, good one!
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Sam said 8:35PM on 5-21-2006
Clarification to the clarification: Apple refuses to say whether or not they've closed-source the Intel Xnu kernel. If you read his statement, they haven't confirmed or denied anything, just called the current opinions on the matter "speculation". Which is true. But after 6 months of no source, it's certainly not a technical problem with getting the source to the site-- there has to be a policy decision somewhere that we're not hearing about.
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Ikzann said 8:44PM on 5-21-2006
Non-digging link:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Fed-talk/2006/May/msg00105.html
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Blatch said 12:58AM on 5-22-2006
It's closed until it's open.
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Alistair McMillan said 3:29PM on 5-22-2006
The "PPC" Darwin kernel source compiles and runs fine on x86 machines.
http://opendarwin.org/pipermail/darwinbuild/2006-February/000278.html
Nothing has changed here. Try it for yourself or check the diffs.
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