Apple Computer is extending its open source efforts with the release of a number of products into the open source community. The products include Mac OS X 10.4.7, the Darwin/Mac OS X kernel, known as "xnu", available as buildable source for the Intel... |
Apple Computer has announced, in the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), that it will extend few open source projects along with the release of a number of products into the open source community. Some of the products include Mac OS X 10.4.7, the Darwin/Mac OS X kernel, known as "xnu", available as buildable source for the Intel platform, including EFI utilities.
Ernest Prabhkar, Apple’s open source product manager, also announced the new Mac OS Forge, a "community site hosted by Apple to support WebKit and other open source projects focused on Mac OS X, especially those looking to transition from OpenDarwin.org.
In order to encourage community participation, Apple announced source code to the new iCal Server in Leopard Server, available on Mac OS Forge under the Apache License.
To further enable and encourage cross-platform adoption, the Apple Public Source License (APSL) sources for Bonjour service discovery and Launchd process management are being re-released under the Apache License and hosted on Mac OS Forge, Apple said.
Apple’s step to maintain a close link with the open source developers underscores an initiative for other OS vendors to follow suit.
Tom Yager on his blog wrote, "Apple's direct engagement with open source developers, and high-end users who need to tune and alter their systems for peak performance, will dramatically alter the landscape.” Tom termed Apple's move as “Apple’s smartest strategic decisions.”
"The most interesting of these to me is the iCal server. This looks like it could become the best open-source competition to Microsoft Exchange. The Leopard version looks like a pretty compelling product to have as an Apache-licensed piece of code, and I could see the code getting merged into a lot of other products,” commented samkass, a blogger, on an article posted on slashdot.org.
Apple, which has been constantly criticized for not releasing the kernel for Mac OS X 10.4 to the open source developer, also announced that the next version of its flagship Mac OS X operating system will support Sun Microsystems' open source DTrace performance analysis and debugging tool.
Another blogger MBCook wrote that OS X would not be totally opened to open source as Linux is. "Apple may open the kernel and various low level things, but OS X in total will not be," commented the blogger.
As for the time being the company is content with the opening of some of its products to the open source developer. Stressing on Apple’s commitment to Open Source Prabhakar said, "Apple is more excited than ever about the power of Open Source development to create value for our (and your) products and customers."
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