newt asks a question that I'm sure a lot of you have been wondering about: "We've just seen news that Apple has Open-Sourced Darwin, which no doubt fills enthusiasts with a warm fuzzy feeling about the future of Open Source and the way that Apple has embraced it. However, there's a piece missing from the picture: QuickTime. How often have you visited a Web page only to find that all the streaming media on it is QuickTime, and you can't view it without the Sorenson CODEC?" There was once a time when Quicktime as well as MPEG were cross platform, now we only have MPEG without the advantages of the advances made in the newer CODECs. Now that Apple has embraced Open Source, could Quicktime be on its way?

The AC crowd were the first to write in with the news. From Wilfredo Sanchez's diary at Advogato, "Today another big milestone has come up. I imported the sources to the kernel into the Darwin CVS repository today, which means that at this point all of the sources needed to build Darwin are available externally for the first time." For those not in the know, Darwin is the foundation on which MacOS X is based. It's a BSD Unix, including significant contributions from the NetBSD and FreeBSD kernel and userland code.

BluesHarp writes, "Apple's lead Darwin engineer Wilfredo Sanchez announced that he successfully built and has made available all of Darwin 1.0 for both PowerPC and Intel. Does this mean that OS X for Intel would be just a recompile away?"

Andrew van der Stock writes "Check out this link and see a rack-mounted iMac. Very Cool." Shades of the 21" Frankenstein iMac covered a few months ago here on Slashdot. This is a cool hardware hack of the "gotta get it done" variety. Talk about faith in a platform! But what is he doing with all the old iMonitors? Perhaps ESR and friends could use some interesting targets ...

Zippy writes, "According to a message posted to the Darwin-Development mailing list, Apple plans to assign the copyright for its changes to gcc to the Free Software Foundation. Sounds like there are a growing number of folks at the company that get it. Now if they'd just open the hardware ... "

dublin passed along this CNET article reporting that Apple Computer has settled its cases against both Daewoo and Emachines, filed in response to those companies' release of iMac look-alike PCs. Read below for more.

The Liquid Plumber asks: "I was wondering if anyone had any luck porting (or any information on porting) Apple's open source "Darwin OS" to Intel platforms? I have glanced at the code, and there is a little architecture-specific code that I'm really not familiar with. If anyone has any information on this, I'd love to have it. Thanks. "

Gr1nderX writes, "Ars just posted a large Mac OS X DP3 technical article that talks about the structure and functioning of OS X's (UNIX) filesystem, and how that impacts the Aqua GUI. IMHO, the most fascinating part of the article concerns the extensive use of XML that Apple makes in managing application resources, file meta-information, service configuration and startup options, etc. The XML parser that's built into the core OS basically gives you the ability to use either the GUI or a text editor to completely control and configure every aspect of the OS. " Lot of good stuff in this one: if only powerbooks weren't so expensive...

Hawks writes, "For you NetBSD junkies out there who don't like Darwin, according to the Changes to NetBSD/macpps 1.5 page, NetBSD now boots on the PowerMac G4's and iMacDV's. I would assume that means it should boot on the iBook and possibly the new Pismo PowerBooks. Hummm, 400Mhz laptop running *BSD...droolllll

Rourke McNamara writes, "Some screenshots and my reactions after using Mac OS X DP3 for a few hours. " Several interesting things: like seeing tcsh running top on MacOS. It's chock full of BSD goodness, but with that pretty interface on top. It'll definitely be interesting to see where this one heads.

Teferi writes "I was browsing t.o and just noticed this - Apple has apparently sent a Cease and Desist letter to themes.org stating that several of the OSX-look themes up othere are copyright violations, because they use the Apple logo in one or two small places (like this theme). " I've actually exchanged mail with OctobrX on this one, and read the C&D letter. Apple's stating violation based on using of copyrighted materials - the Mac OS and Apple logos in this case. Hopefully, now that Apple is talking with the creator of the themes, things can be resolved amicably, and the themes restored - but for the meantime, the themes have been pulled.

yuriwho writes, "Apple has announced several upgrades: an extra 50 MHz clockspeed for G4's, as well as an upgraded powerbook with extra MHz, firewire, RAM space and airport compatibility (tech specs/marketing here). There's also an iBook special edition. Check out hotnews for the info on the various product lines. Several minor improvements added together may make quite a bit of difference especially in the mobile market - unfortunately nothing stunning. "

DoenerMord writes "There's an interesting new piece which describes the story behind Apple's doomed pre-Mac system, the Lisa (aren't there thousands of these buried in a landfill somewhere?). It covers the UI, which influenced the original Mac, and just about every other GUI since. It also discusses a bit of the controversial Xerox fiasco. I especially like the comparative OS X Aqua pic at the bottom of the screenshots page. The more things change, the more they stay the same..." Update: 02/13 07:21 by E : The site is up again. Enjoy it while it lasts.

imac.usr writes "MacNN mentioned that Apple now has its own Web page describing Linux, the distributions available for PowerPC Macs, and links to them." But can you drag your hard drive to the trash to unmount it?

MacOS Rumors is running a blurb that Apple is exploring porting Darwin to other processors (including Transmeta's Crusoe processor) due to frustration with availability of high speed Motorola G4 processors. An interesting though, a Mac without a Motorola chip... Of course, it's just a rumor at this point... (update: I've got it confirmed from "anonymous sources" that this is true)

Gilmoure writes "John Siracusa has written an excellent article on the technology (Quartz) behind Aqua and its possible impact on GUI industry. " The continued evolution of OS/X has been interesting, even simply from the marketing perspectives. John's take is a good one to read if you haven't followed OSX very much.

Evan Vetere writes "Apple is being petitioned to release a QuickTime client for Linux." Apple has been babystepping around Open Source for awhile now, but multimedia is one area where the veil of secrecy is extremely opaque: the codecs that drive video display and streaming are almost always proprietary. It would be great if apple would lead the way towards fair open standards by releasing an Open Source Quicktime client for Linux. It would do a world of good towards getting it accepted as a standard.

Khelder sent us a nifty little bit about the MacOS X Desktop. It talks quite a bit about UI Design (mirror) from a Mac-Centric but also a general perspective. It's quite interesting stuff for anyone into MacOS-X, but also it has lots of practical stuff for anyone who's ever tried to create a usable theme for one of today's modern window managers.

Aaron Greenberg asks: "On Macintouch today, they've linked to a page explaining how Mac users not running MacOS 9 can utilize some of Apple's recently announced "iTools". Among iTools more interesting features is 20 MB of free remote storage via AppleShare IP. This service would be available to Linux users with AFPFS - an implementation of an AppleShare client for Linux that is only alpha quality and currently not being developed. While 20 MB of remote storage isn't something to go nuts over, I was wondering if it might inspire someone to continue work on AFPFS? Does Apple's open source release of MacOS X (Darwin) have code which would help further this project? For someone who works with Macs and Linux on the same network, it would be a nice tool to have. To those who might be quick to suggest netatalk - NOTE: netatalk only allows Linux/*nix users to serve files to Macs, but will NOT mount remote Mac servers using either classic AppleShare or AppleShare IP."

ShogZilla writes "Apple threatened Skinz.org (a windows "skins" site) & Stardock (makers of the win32 app "windowblinds") with legal action if a certain skin The problem? The skin (winaqua) alters WinOS window frames to mimic the Mac OS Aqua appearance - kinda. It's very altered, the graphics are custom, & the layout is different - but that doesn't appear to matter. After the threat, both sites initially complied, but have reconsidered & have reposted the skin; it does not use any graphics from aqua, it does not contain any mac logos etc; it's an original work - just inspired by the aqua GUI. " I'm still waiting for an Aqua theme for E - Aqua just looks so darn /purty/.