Would we potentially see Chinese knock-offs? Sure. Open… now what?Īfter all, who would use it? Microsoft? The odds of Microsoft taking Mac OS X to replace Windows are less than zero. Not that it would matter even if Apple were to release Mac OS X Sierra in its entirety. As Lance James pointed out, “Analogous to a car, the engine and wheels are open source and free but the car frame and all other features are not.” Lots (and lots and lots and lots) of the cool stuff that makes a Mac a Mac (GUI and lots more) are proprietary, not based on open code, and thus not shared.” To be clear, it’s significant code, but not the sort of thing that comprises an entire operating system. SEE Apple is doubling down on open source (TechRepublic)Īs one commentator noted, “This is only the kernel and other core-level technologies. But this doesn’t mean Apple is releasing OS X Sierra 10.12 itself. OS X has always been based on a Unix variant, which is one thing that makes it so powerful for developers. What, exactly, is Apple open sourcing? Despite Apple admittedly “doubling down on open source,” this particular release of Darwin source code is much more modest. Even if Apple were releasing Mac OS X Sierra 10.12 in its entirety, the odds of developers doing much with it are negligible. And no, it doesn’t mean you can start selling an OS X fork. No, this doesn’t mean you can take OS X and make it run on Windows. (Though that is, in fact, happening.) As for OS X, Apple has been doing the same thing for the past 16 years, fulfilling its obligations to open source the Darwin kernel at the heart of OS X. This isn’t about Apple getting open source religion.

Why Apple open sourcing Mac OS X isn’t terribly excitingĪpple released the kernel to Mac OS X-but even if it released the whole thing, not much would change.Īpple just open sourced the innards of its popular Mac OS X operating system, but relax.

Darwin kernel os