Re: Patch Licensing Terms

[Paige DePol <lual@...>]

Coda Highland <chighland@gmail.com> wrote:

> macOS doesn't use the Mach kernel. It uses the XNU kernel, which is a
> hybrid kernel combining parts of the Mach kernel and parts of the
> 4.3BSD kernel. macOS uses the Darwin userland, which is a derivative
> of the NeXTSTEP userland, which was built upon the BSD userland since
> day one. So yes, macOS is a BSD descendant.

I thought the earlier versions of OSX used the Mach kernel, but apparently
the XNU kernel has been used since the NeXT days as well, interesting...
thank you for the clarification! I think the confusion probably stems from
the fact that the kernel filename was "mach_kernel" on older versions of
OSX, but is now just "kernel" on newer versions of macOS.


> Apple's complaint about Hackintosh has nothing to do with
> redistributing the open-source parts of the operating system -- they
> have absolutely no problem with the PureDarwin project, for example.
> The problem is that building a Hackintosh in the first place requires
> obtaining a copy of the closed-source components of macOS in
> contravention of THAT license agreement.

My point wasn't about Apple having issues with the distribtion of the
open-source components of the OS, but rather people running copies of macOS
on unauthorised hardware... something Apple has always had issues with, and
rightly so given it is their software to license as they will.

Well, for a bit Apple did allow Macintosh clones to be sold via licensing
agreements, according to Wikipedia there were 75 such clones, but once Jobs
returned that program was stopped.

~Paige