OS X is no more than an advanced GUI.
Why not start a Windows forum.
NT is more Linux/UNIX like than Darwin.

I think this is sad.
Why supporting a completely commercial system that has nothing to do with Linux on LQ?

Wha?

OS X is BSD with a nice (very nice) GUI. It remains a full UNIX system underneath, as you can see if you launch a shell. All the usual toolchain apps are present. You can even download Darwin for x86 and add your own utilities (in exactly the same way that the Linux kernel was added to the GNU system).

I think that fits the 'Other *NIX' forum pretty well, proprietary or not.

Dave

No.
The OS is Darwin based.
OS X is a GUI and nothing more.


OS X just isn't a platform, it's only the GUI(and not a cheap one).

Well, you don't have to support it at all. All you have to do is by-pass any thread that is OS X specific. Do you have the same felling about any of the unix forums? Do they not have anything to do within a linux forums? I just don't see what the big deel is.

Again, wha?

Darwin is based on Mach, which in turn is based on BSD 4.4 (OS X was derived from the NeXT system).

OSX comprises Darwin, Aqua, Cocoa, et al. (in the same way Linux usually comprises the Linux kernel, X, GTK/QT et al), so it's perfectly valid as a UNIX system. You can install X and run the same GUI programs you use on Linux and any BSD you care to mention on OS X.

AIX is a proprietary system too. Should it be excluded from the LQ forums? Apple is also contributing back to the open source community, even though, under the BSD license, they don't have to.

OS X is a UNIX (as much as Linux is, possibly more, due to its BSD base). What's the problem?

Dave

You keep seeing OS X as an OS.
I don't mind any support for Darwin, but not for OS X.

OS X is the same as using a commercial X server on BSD/Linux.
OS X is simply that part that does not support any community.

Why not have a forum for OS X as an entire system? OS X has plenty of users and it's a very easy way to get into UNIX in general, so why not offer community support for them? Plenty of people who are active in the OSS community run OS X on their laptops for example.

People run all kinds of software on their (OSS) OSes. I don't see you complaining about people posting about problems running (non-OSS) Unreal Tournament on Linux for example. Where do you draw the line? Is it only their choice of GUI system?

Perhaps the forum could be renamed 'Darwin' instead of 'OSX', but most people aren't familiar with the internals of OSX, so who would this help?

Dave

If someone posted a question here, "I am using OS X and..." would they just be posting a question about the GUI only? No, it could be about anything.
The question would be within the context of this forum, a Unix (like) operating system that does not (yet) have a dedicated forum on this site.
Seriously, is anyone saying Vector Linux cannot have it's own forum because it is just Slackware or that Knoppix cannot be discussed without calling it Debian.

Jens, I'd like to believe otherwise, but it seems to me that you're trying very hard to start a flamewar (and without any basis). OS X is exactly what ilikejam says.

In 1985, Mach was created by forking 4.2BSD
In 1988, NeXTSTEP was created from 4.3BSD and Mach 2.5
Over the years, NeXSTEP morphed to OPENSTEP and then Rhapsody
In 1999, Rhapsody forked in two directions: OS X server, and Darwin
Soon after, OS X (client) was started with an import from Mach 4
In 2001, GNU/Darwin forked from Apple's Darwin
In 2002, both OS X versions took imports from FreeBSD 4.4 and 4.5 (meanwhile the changes to OS X were being released in Darwin)
In 2003, OS X imported more components from FreeBSD 4.8 and 5.1, while OS X server imported some FBSD 5.1 code
Also in 2003, OpenDarwin forked from Apple's Darwin

Don't believe me? Just read the UNIX family tree

As you can clearly see, OS X is a combination of Mach (kernel) and NeXSTEP, complimented with a lot of userland utilities from FreeBSD (and a few pieces of the kernel). The UI is entirely Apple's, but that's far from the only Apple IP. You are aware that Apple bought NeXT after Steve Jobs returned as CEO, right? Apple is about as thuroughly BSD-based as you can get. The contributions from FreeBSD were largely userland utilities, and they weren't imported until years after OS X launched.

It was Apple who started Darwin, they didn't steal it and put a UI on top, as you seem to be insinuating. To the contrary, Apple was generous enough to release Darwin as Open Source and allow people to fork it as GNU/Darwin and OpenDarwin. Apple has continued to release their improvements from OS X into Darwin so that the Open Source community can benefit from Apple's development work.

Now I'm asking you, jens, very politely to stop inciting flame wars and attempting to spread complete falsehoods that you could have easily checked for accuracy.

Also, if OS X discussions belongs in any forum, it's the BSD forum since it's totally BSD-based. Darwin is considered a *BSD, and Darwin comes from the OS X core, without the UI and all the Apple applications and tools.

OK, I know I really shouldn't, but this really irks me.

As an addition to the above facts, I also find it highly ironic that jens blasts Apple for being "not very cheap", but apparently sees no problem at all with Red Hat charging thousands of dollars per license for EL. In fact, jens why are you using FC if you hate corporations so much? Mandrake, Novell, and many others charge for "pro" or "enterprise" versions of their software, or for the security update service, or for access to more software packages.

As another poster mentioned, there are already forums for AIX and Solaris. Should these be removed as well? Certainly both those OSs are many times more expensive than even OS X server, and were built on the backs of Ritchie & Thompson's labor of love. IBM, Sun, SGI, HP, etc never used Open Source versions of UNIX, they had access to the restricted AT&T version and licensed it from nearly the beginning. It's only recently that IBM and SGI started comitting little snippets of code to the Linux kernel and Sun has GPL'd a few of it's utilities (but expressly NOT Java).

I think some people totally miss the point of Open Source, and as a totally separate issue, apparently a few misunderstand the purpose of LQ. Open Source is about developers voluntarily donating their code for anyone to use for any purpose, even commercial purposes. It's the developers' right to release their software under whatever license they wish. The community at large hopes that people make contributions back and that people help out as they can, but it's not mandated. BSD and Linux are widely used by corporations to make products, and in fact many start-up companies were allowed to happen only because they could start with existing free operating systems without having to reinvent the wheel or pay for costly licenses. That's a good thing for everyone.

As for LQ, it's a place to learn and share (much like Open Source software). Primarily it's for promoting Linux and educating people about Linux, but it's also to assist people with many different UNIX-related questions, since the Open Source community has a substantial overlap with the UNIX community. You shouldn't form some kind of virtual "cliques" where people become stuck-up over "my OS is more free than yours", but rather participate in sharing knowledge and helping people out. No one is forcing anyone to be helpful, but if you choose not to be helpful please don't stand in other people's way, either.

I'll add that we also have forums for AIX, Solaris, etc. While the site is focused on Linux, the reality is that many Linux admins must also deal with legacy systems running various UNIX variants. Since we have many members who are very skilled in these variants, it only makes sense to offer a place for these topics to be discussed.

--jeremy

Actually, I only meant that OS X doesn't include any core parts of the actual OS.
Seems I was wrong.

And no, I was not looking for a flame war, neither was I bashing Apple or mentioned OSS, GPL,...

All of your arguing is about semantics, I think for all intents and purposes os/x is the os, and we should leave it at that.

me and my guru friend have argued the point the mac osx is a very good distrobution - specifically because it will work with 100% of the computers (very expensive) hardware, all the hardware is more or less identical thereefore every program is compiled and built to run as efficentally as it possibally can on that system....
its approaching the whole distrobution form the other angle... insteed of making all the software compilable... it makes all the hardware identical. therefore circumvents ***MOST*** majour problems.

It also leaves the door open for a complete monopoly if Apple was in Microsofts shoes today...but that is neither here nor there.

OS X is an operating system all its own with BSD Roots. It is far more than a simple GUI. While I do not have the technical know-how to explain why it's different from a simple GUI, I know that it is.

There are plenty of programs that are Mac only that really can't be run on any other platform including BSD.

That's all I can really say about it.

Mike