OS X Leopard qualifies for UNIX 03 certification

Any Apple fan can probably tell you that Mac OS X is based on the UNIX operating system. Relatively few Mac-heads, however, can speak to exactly what that means. In actuality, OS X's Darwin core is based on the XNU kernel, which, in turn, is based on the Mach kernel from the BSD implementation of Unix. So that makes OS X more like the third-generation offspring of UNIX. Despite this fact, Leopard, the upcoming OS X revision, apparently has enough in common with the venerable open-source OS to qualify for the Open Group's UNIX 03 certification, which covers libraries, system calls, terminal interfaces, commands and utilities, internationalization and the C language. This means that porting software and utilities from UNIX OSes to OS X will now be even easier, thanks to the UNIX 03 standardization. The certification also grants Apple access to a very exclusive club of certified UNIX vendors. And while I can only imagine what the likes of Sun, HP, IBM and now, Apple, do at the four-vendor UNIX 03 club, I'd like to think they don tuxedos, sip martinis and play polo all day.

For more on Leopard's UNIX 03 certification:
- see this InfoWorld article