How does the unix licensing affect apple's ability to sell the Mac OS X?

[Schadenfroh]

Do they have to pay rolalties to SCO or they using a free unix variant, if so, how can they sell it when it uses GPL code or is the unix variant it is based on even bound to a GPL and do the people that own the code get a cut of what apple gets from selling the OS?

 

[keeleysam]

The part that they co-wrote, which is called Darwin, can be downloaded for free from apple.com.

 

[ViRGE]

Besides the part they wrote, the rest is based on FreeBSD(which is *gasp* free, both in beer and speech), so they don't owe anyone for the underlying technologies. Officially, it's not even a Unix OS, so they don't owe the Open Group royalties for the name either.

 

[Nothinman]

Do they have to pay rolalties to SCO

Anyone who pays royalties to SCO needs to be shot.

or they using a free unix variant

It's the Mach kernel and the FreeBSD userland, both are OSS.

if so, how can they sell it when it uses GPL code

I believe most of the free parts are BSD licensed, but GPL'd code can be sold just fine as long as the source code is made available to those whom you sell it.

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Besides the part they wrote, the rest is based on FreeBSD(which is *gasp* free, both in beer and speech), so they don't owe anyone for the underlying technologies. Officially, it's not even a Unix OS, so they don't owe the Open Group royalties for the name either.

I even think that the trademark is "UNIX," in all-caps. I do not know if the Legal Operating System is case-sensitive. :laugh:

 

[kamper]

http://www.apple.com/ca/macosx/features/unix/

They use the word "UNIX" quite freely. BSD is technically just unix-like though right?
At any rate, if the recent AT performance issue is any indication, their marketing hoopla about "improved SMP scalability" is a pretty blatant load of crap.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: kamper
http://www.apple.com/ca/macosx/features/unix/

They use the word "UNIX" quite freely. BSD is technically just unix-like though right?
At any rate, if the recent AT performance issue is any indication, their marketing hoopla about "improved SMP scalability" is a pretty blatant load of crap.

Note they use "UNIX-based"; officially speaking, OS X is not a UNIX OS.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: kamper
http://www.apple.com/ca/macosx/features/unix/

They use the word "UNIX" quite freely. BSD is technically just unix-like though right?
At any rate, if the recent AT performance issue is any indication, their marketing hoopla about "improved SMP scalability" is a pretty blatant load of crap.

BSD is unix, no matter what lawyers say.

FreeBSD pays lip service to freedom, but I wouldn'trely on them.

 

[miniMUNCH]

The UNIX trademark which Apple is allowed to use is not owned by SCO...it is by some by the Open Group (or something like that) and Apple went through the process to get OS X certified as UNIX, whatever that means.

 

[JDCentral]

OS X is more 'unix-like' than 'actual unix'.

The mach kernel is an entirely different beast - although it was based on the BSD 4.x (4.3?) kernel tree, it's been VERY heavily modified to make it a microkernel (all sorts of stuff is available on the anand article http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=7).

As this kernel was developed (mostly?) by Steve Jobs during his NeXTStep days, before Apple begged him back, acquiring his NeXT software ideas in the process.

This might be incorrect - just what I remember. Corrections are welcome.

-Justin

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: JDCentral
OS X is more 'unix-like' than 'actual unix'.

The mach kernel is an entirely different beast - although it was based on the BSD 4.x (4.3?) kernel tree, it's been VERY heavily modified to make it a microkernel (all sorts of stuff is available on the anand article http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=7).

As this kernel was developed (mostly?) by Steve Jobs during his NeXTStep days, before Apple begged him back, acquiring his NeXT software ideas in the process.

This might be incorrect - just what I remember. Corrections are welcome.

-Justin

Steve Jobs doesn't develop anything, and I believe he got the Mach kernel from other sources.

 

[JDCentral]

Sorry... I meant that Jobs was in charge of the NeXT project.

NeXT was his 'brainchild', I suppose.