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Intel (x86) OS X Kernel Becoming Closed-Source?

Wednesday May 17, 2006 12:43 pm PDT by longofest
According to an opinion piece by Tom Yager at Infoworld, Apple has closed the source of the Intel version of the Mac OS X kernel (called XNU) due to piracy concerns. While the rest of the underlying operating system of OS X (called Darwin) is still open-source, closing the kernel means less capability for pirates to hack OS X to run on non-Apple hardware, but also limits developers and power-users' ability to tweak their systems.

Apple's Open-Darwin mailing list has an ongoing discussion in which some users point out that Apple has actually not released the XNU source for Intel since 10.4.3 or perhaps earlier. Therefore, it appears as though the facts of the article are not new, but rather are just now gaining press attention.

Apple has not officially commented on the future of XNU's source availability, and it appears most conclusions as to why the source has not been released is based on speculation rather than inside knowledge.
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MacBytes
75 months ago


Category: Apple Software
Link: Apple closes darwin - No longer open source.
Description:: Apple is closing the Mac OS X kernel, Darwin, so that the source code is no longer accessible to developers. The reason stated are the numerous hacker attacks to the Mac OS X system.

Posted on MacBytes.com
Approved by Mudbug
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Mord
75 months ago
this needs to be taken with a grain of salt, a pretty massive one, this just means that apple is adding closed sections to the kernel to stop OSx86 hacks.

darwin will continue open source, however the version used in OS X will be modified.
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greatdevourer
75 months ago
If Apple are to release source just for Server, I wouldn't be suprised if it'll've been modified to the point where it doesn't work with Client, thus letting those who want suped up kernels do as they wish without the same level fear of piracy
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Spanky Deluxe
75 months ago
Hackers will still get around this somehow but it sure will make it harder for them. Besides which, how many 'power users' actually modify their kernel?? I mean seriously?
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MrCrowbar
75 months ago
I though the Kernel was based on the opne FreeBSD...
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yellow
75 months ago

I though the Kernel was based on the opne FreeBSD...


No. It's Mach, from NeXTSTEP. At least the OS X version of Mach. The dude from CMU who developed it was hired by SJ to develop it for Apple.
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starflyer
75 months ago
Maybe this has to do with the rumor that they are dropping Mach support...just a thought
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Warbrain
75 months ago
I find no problem with this. Apple wants to control their OS, which is their property. They don't want OS X to be run on non-Apple PCs, and that's fine.
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Evangelion
75 months ago

No. It's Mach, from NeXTSTEP. At least the OS X version of Mach. The dude from CMU who developed it was hired by SJ to develop it for Apple.


No it's not. It's basically part Mach, part FreeBSD and part something else.
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yellow
75 months ago

No it's not. It's basically part Mach, part FreeBSD and part something else.


Yes it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU

They borrowed pieces/parts from the Mach for BSD, but for the most part it's all Mach from NeXTSTEP.
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