Darwin and the Apple II

["John E. Townsend" <utownje@lexis-nexis.com>]

A snippet from today's press release by Apple:

-----------
Apple Computer, Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) today announced the launch of Darwin --
the Open Source(TM) release of the Mac(R) OS X Server operating system
foundation. Mac OS X Server is the Company's new server operating system
which combines the proven strength of UNIX with the simplicity of
Macintosh. Darwin will be available free to developers in the next few
weeks at (www.apple.com/darwin). With this announcement, Apple becomes the
first mainstream operating system provider to release its source code to
the public and base its system software strategy on Open Source
technologies. 

"The Open Source movement is revolutionizing the way operating systems
evolve and Apple is leading the industry by becoming the first major OS
provider to make it's core operating system available to Open Source
developers," said Avie Tevanian, Apple's senior vice president of Software
Engineering. "We look forward to working with the Open Source community to
enhance the feature set, performance and quality of our Mac OS X products."


The first release of Darwin consists of the foundation layer of Mac OS X
Server, including enhancements to the Mach 2.5 microkernel and BSD 4.4
operating system, as well as core Apple technologies like AppleTalk(R),
HFS+ file system and the NetInfo distributed database. 
---------

OK, it seems to me that maybe the venerable II may be able to benefit from
this as well.  Perhaps this could contribute to the development of an HFS+
FST or more AppleTalk printer drivers.  Maybe Apple could even be
encouraged to open source ProDOS and GS/OS too...

-- 
John E. Townsend
Sr. Software Engineer          "Machines should work;
LEXIS-NEXIS                     people should think."
Dayton, OH, USA                        -- IBM Polyanna Principle
utownje@lexis-nexis.com