Apple Announces Darwin Open Source Project -- Last week, Apple announced it plans to make the source code for the foundation layers of Mac OS X Server available via an open source initiative called Darwin. Developers who agree with the Apple Public Source License can register with Apple to gain access to the source code, which will include Apple's enhancements to the Mach 2.5 microkernel in Mac OS X Server, plus several Apple technologies such as AppleTalk, the HFS Plus file system, and the new NetInfo distributed database. Apple says it plans to include additional software in its open source offerings, but don't expect to see source code for Apple's bread-and-butter technologies (like the current Mac OS, QuickTime, WebObjects, or the NeXT application layer) released as open source. Source code for Darwin should be available to developers in early April. It remains to be seen whether Darwin will be genuinely useful to developers, or whether Apple is merely surfing the open source wave. See TidBITS Talk for debate on the topic. [GD]

<http://www.opensource.org/>
<http://www.apple.com/darwin/>
<http://www.publicsource.apple.com/apsl.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=629>