Apple's Leopard gains UNIX 03 certification
Apple's forthcoming release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is the first BSD-based operating system to receive the UNIX 03 certification, placing the Mac maker among an elite group of official UNIX 03 vendors.
As noted by ArsTechnica in its coverage of the matter, Apple has always touted Mac OS X as UNIX-based, playing up the security, stability, and compatibility that comes with its BSD foundation. At one point, the company's evangelism of Mac OS X through use of the UNIX name actually landed it in hot water with The Open Group, as the OS wasn't actually UNIX-certified at the time.
"All that is changing," explains Ars, "since the upcoming Leopard release has received the UNIX 03 certification as of May 18, meaning that Mac OS X 10.5 on the Intel platform is a 'true' UNIX OS, rather than just being UNIX-like."
From a developer standpoint, UNIX 03 certification means that Leopard conforms to the Single UNIX Specification Version 3 (SUS), which outlines how components like the shell, compiler, and C APIs should function.
In becoming the first BSD-based OS to receive the UNIX 03 certification, Leopard also adds Apple to an extremely short list of official UNIX 03 OS vendors that include IBM, Sun, and HP. This presents several advantages:
"Any software written for the SUS specification is easily portable to a UNIX 03 operating system, meaning that enterprise customers who need a 'real' UNIX for their applications can now use Leopard servers if they so desire," writes Ars. "Leopard's certification also gives developers another option for a development platforms, which could translate into some extra Mac sales."
Leopard's UNIX 03 certification applies only to the Intel-based version according to the official Open Brand Certificate [PDF].
As noted by ArsTechnica in its coverage of the matter, Apple has always touted Mac OS X as UNIX-based, playing up the security, stability, and compatibility that comes with its BSD foundation. At one point, the company's evangelism of Mac OS X through use of the UNIX name actually landed it in hot water with The Open Group, as the OS wasn't actually UNIX-certified at the time.
"All that is changing," explains Ars, "since the upcoming Leopard release has received the UNIX 03 certification as of May 18, meaning that Mac OS X 10.5 on the Intel platform is a 'true' UNIX OS, rather than just being UNIX-like."
From a developer standpoint, UNIX 03 certification means that Leopard conforms to the Single UNIX Specification Version 3 (SUS), which outlines how components like the shell, compiler, and C APIs should function.
In becoming the first BSD-based OS to receive the UNIX 03 certification, Leopard also adds Apple to an extremely short list of official UNIX 03 OS vendors that include IBM, Sun, and HP. This presents several advantages:
"Any software written for the SUS specification is easily portable to a UNIX 03 operating system, meaning that enterprise customers who need a 'real' UNIX for their applications can now use Leopard servers if they so desire," writes Ars. "Leopard's certification also gives developers another option for a development platforms, which could translate into some extra Mac sales."
Leopard's UNIX 03 certification applies only to the Intel-based version according to the official Open Brand Certificate [PDF].
Comments
I wonder if the efforts toward UNIX '03 certification are pointing toward a real enterprise strategy from Apple. After all, most consumers wouldn't care one way or the other about such things (although it does widen the feature gap between OSX and Windows, at least from a marketing perspective), but it does become important for CIO-types who are looking for an enterprise server platform.
I was thinking about that exactly.. If enterprises have softeware written in UNIX and like the article says "easy to port" to Leopard, maybe this is the 4th leg that Steve meant to his peers when he talk about Apple being a 2 leg table before the iPhone..
Let's see what the new cat brings to the mac world.. in the mean time:
WHERE THE HELL IS MY NEW IMAC?
This was news in Sweden on the 12 of June. Even with a link to download the Apple Unix 03 certificate.
Not much going on in Sweden then...
Best Regards,
Manu, Finland
Apple's forthcoming release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is the first BSD-based operating system to receive the UNIX 03 certification, placing the Mac maker among an elite group of official UNIX 03 vendors.
As noted by ArsTechnica in its coverage of the matter, Apple has always touted Mac OS X as UNIX-based, playing up the security, stability, and compatibility that comes with its BSD foundation. At one point, the company's evangelism of Mac OS X through use of the UNIX name actually landed it in hot water with The Open Group, as the OS wasn't actually UNIX-certified at the time.
"All that is changing," explains Ars, "since the upcoming Leopard release has received the UNIX 03 certification as of May 18, meaning that Mac OS X 10.5 on the Intel platform is a 'true' UNIX OS, rather than just being UNIX-like."
From a developer standpoint, UNIX 03 certification means that Leopard conforms to the Single UNIX Specification Version 3 (SUS), which outlines how components like the shell, compiler, and C APIs should function.
In becoming the first BSD-based OS to receive the UNIX 03 certification, Leopard also adds Apple to an extremely short list of official UNIX 03 OS vendors that include IBM, Sun, and HP. This presents several advantages:
"Any software written for the SUS specification is easily portable to a UNIX 03 operating system, meaning that enterprise customers who need a 'real' UNIX for their applications can now use Leopard servers if they so desire," writes Ars. "Leopard's certification also gives developers another option for a development platforms, which could translate into some extra Mac sales."
Leopard's UNIX 03 certification applies only to the Intel-based version according to the official Open Brand Certificate [PDF].
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
This is great. We can now use an apple servers more ways and show off more capability to overtake the industry with reliability that few can supply . Bigger margins for AAPL.
Does this cover basically the whole market (with some niche solutions, is there still an SGI)? Or are there other relevant UNIX flavours? And what is the relative importance of these systems in the non-consumer market?
(*) I know Solaris is open-source now, but not by tradition.
Thanks for the content recently, but now you're reporting something that should be dated June 12th.
This was on Apple's site since WWDC, and just reading this page would tell you all about SUSv3 and POSIX compliance.
Sebastian
It's a slow day...
K
If not, then what?
Hahaha...ha....
The funny thing is that Mac OS X's kernel is XNU, a backronym for "X is Not UNIX". Well now XNU *is* UNIX.
Hahaha...ha....
What?
The kernel is MACH.
Or am I missing something here?
All I know is Time Machine lets you fly into a wormhole
Leopard's UNIX 03 certification applies only to the Intel-based version according to the official Open Brand Certificate [PDF].
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
All the more reason for Apple to release a minitower (I know I know) so I can replace my iBook G4 Of Horror!
I had thought that the Sun implementation was based on FreeBSD just as Apple's is.
If not, then what?
Sun's Unix is SunOS, whose heritage as a UNIX system dates back to the early 1980's, when it was derived from BSD. This was back when the legitimacy of Berkeley's version of Unix wasn't debated as hotly as it would be later.
As of SunOS 5.0 (re-branded as Solaris 2.0) and later, it was derived instead from System V Release 4 (which is unquestionably a legitimate Unix, and itself was an amalgam of technologies from various sources, including, you guessed it, BSD.)
FreeBSD came into existence as an open-source project later on, as Berkeley was officially dropping development of BSD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:U...ory-simple.svg
All the more reason for Apple to release a minitower (I know I know) so I can replace my iBook G4 Of Horror!
I would bet this is the beginning of the end for those of us on PowerPC systems, which is a shame. I still love my Dual 2.5GHz G5. It still kicks ass!
Well actually, I guess the switch to Intel was the real beginning of the end, but you know what I mean.
I would bet this is the beginning of the end for those or us on PowerPC systems, which is a shame. I still love my Dual 2.5GHz G5. It still kicks ass!
Well actually, I guess the switch to Intel was the real beginning of the end, but you know what I mean.
Ya, and wish I could afford a Mac Pro, Apple retire the mini and make a minitower so your fanboys can finally make the transition!
What?
The kernel is MACH.
Or am I missing something here?
The NAME of the kernel is XNU. (Darwin is only a marketing name really).
What?
The kernel is MACH.
Or am I missing something here?
You're missing a little.
XNU is a fucked up hybrid of like 3 or 4 things. I don't really have the knowledge to elaborate but kernelthread does.
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/arch_xnu.html
The NAME of the kernel is XNU. (Darwin is only a marketing name really).
Darwin is a whole OS based off of XNU.
I would bet this is the beginning of the end for those of us on PowerPC systems, which is a shame. I still love my Dual 2.5GHz G5. It still kicks ass!
Well actually, I guess the switch to Intel was the real beginning of the end, but you know what I mean.
You noticed?
Ya, and wish I could afford a Mac Pro, Apple retire the mini and make a minitower so your fanboys can finally make the transition!
All the more reason for Apple to release a minitower (I know I know) so I can replace my iBook G4 Of Horror!
Maybe just make the Mini a bit taller? Y'know like a cube but with snap-in drives, memory & graphics? C'mon Steve - 3rd time lucky?
McD