Apple Opens Darwin

LIVE FROM INTERNET WORLD - In a press release early this morning, Apple Computer confirmed reports that it would open source the core operating system of Mac 0S X, named Darwin. "The core of Mac OS X is the only mainstream operating system following an open source model," said Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, Philip Schiller. Darwin is based on FreeBSD and Mach 3.0 technologies and supports "the Kernel Extension Developer Kit (KDK) for developing drivers and loadable modules."

Darwin 1.0 will give developers access to the essnetial Mac OS X source code, allowing them to extend the operating system with the help of Apple engineers. This unprecendented event is a huge step for the open source movement.

Although Darwin was designed on the Macintosh architecture, developers have successfully compiled the OS on Intel systems, and with futher driver and platform support, Darwin could prove a viable competitor to Windows.

Apple also announced an update to the Darwin Streaming Server, an open source version of Apple's QuickTime software. This update provides support for Windows NT and will be avilable for download in May.

You may download Darwin 1.0 binaries and source freely at http://www.apple.com/darwin.