[Xastir] New stable release out: xastir-2.0.4

[Curt, WE7U]

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