By John Townley, Web Developer News
Apple has announced the
release of Darwin 1.0, the operating system core at the heart of
Mac OS X, and the release of an updated Darwin Streaming
Server.
Darwin’s open source model allows registered Darwin developers
to modify, customize and extend Apple (AAPL)
software, including the modern mach kernel and BSD layers found in
Apple’s next generation operating system, Mac OS X.
“The core of Mac OS X is the only mainstream operating system
following an open source model,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s vice
president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The new Darwin 1.0
posting includes some of the most advanced operating system
technology available, and it’s open to our customers and developers
so that we may collaborate on the future of the Mac OS.“
The new Darwin kernel 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 gives
developers access to essential Mac OS X source code. This allows
developers to enhance the feature set, performance and quality of
Mac OS X products in partnership with Apple engineers. Darwin 1.0
is processor-independent and is built for PowerPC and Intel
platforms, enabling Open Source developers to work on Darwin
projects on a choice of computer systems.
In addition to Darwin 1.0, Apple also announced an update to the
Darwin Streaming Server, the open source version of Apple’s
QuickTime Streaming Server software, which is used to stream audio
and video. This update makes the Darwin Streaming Server available
for Windows NT-based systems, expanding support for developers
creating streaming server products based on five different
operating systems — Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris and now
Windows NT.