I have heard (no pun intended) of something like Debian running in L4 Userland, though that seems kind of silly, since the Linux kernel is unified. The point of using a microkernel is to break up the system into independent modules/daemons that can be managed more easily. Hurd on Mach does run, but, after nearly 30 years of development, it is still not a candidate for a viable OS. I think this is partly due to Mach cruft, but they have not come up with a better kernel to build it on. Seems to me they were talking about ultimately making Hurd kernel-agnostic, but one thing they do a lot of over there is talk about stuff.
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Will Apple replace the OS X kernel with Linux?
- Thread starter aaronvan
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I have heard (no pun intended) of something like Debian running in L4 Userland, though that seems kind of silly, since the Linux kernel is unified. The point of using a microkernel is to break up the system into independent modules/daemons that can be managed more easily. Hurd on Mach does run, but, after nearly 30 years of development, it is still not a candidate for a viable OS. I think this is partly due to Mach cruft, but they have not come up with a better kernel to build it on. Seems to me they were talking about ultimately making Hurd kernel-agnostic, but one thing they do a lot of over there is talk about stuff.
Ok, my point was that this is one of the rare occasions where being pedantic about the GNU/Linux distinction matters.
Since Linux is strictly the kernel, if you are to replace it with another kernel, it's not Linux.
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Ok, my point was that this is one of the rare occasions where being pedantic about the GNU/Linux distinction matters.
IIUC, "Linux" refers to the kernel, which is a big thing that does a bunch of stuff in kernel (unprotected) space; "GNU/Linux" means the Linux kernel with the other stuff like tcsh that actually makes the kernel itself accessible and useful.
Can't And Way too late.
Apple (and Next before that) has been shipping tons of GPL licensed software for around two decades, including mklinux and later gcc in older versions of Xcode, as well for some command-line utilities. Apple also still publishes a lot of Open Source (but not GPL) code used in the guts of webkit/Safari, llvm/clang and the OS X kernel.
Check it out for your self at Apple's Open Source repository: http://www.opensource.apple.com/
mklinux and older gcc were under the GPL v2.2 license. gcc is now under the GPL v3.0 license, and no GPL v3.0 licensed gcc has ever been shipped by Apple. LLVM, Clang, and the OS X kernel are all BSD and not GPL licensed. It looks like you haven't been paying attention. It's not that Apple isn't using and isn't willing to use Open Source code. It's that the GPL v3.0 license was _intentionally_ created to make it harder for Apple to use their code, and the Apple haters in the open source community _will_ use the GPL license to claim that Apple's use of their code is somehow infringing on their copyright. They have done so in the past; preventing iOS users to use certain open source software, all in the name of protecting the "freedom" of users to use the software. (Don't ask me how that works. They tell you you can't use the software because that violates people's freedom to use the software).
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For example, you can't add h.264 encoding or decoding to GPL 3.0 licensed software and ship the result.
But in the end, there is very little reason why Apple would _want_ to use Linux. Starting with the compatibility problems that you would get at the lowest level, when POSIX 2003 compatible calls are replaced with not-quite-POSIX 2003 compatible calls.