Darwin (operating system)
Overview
 
Darwin is an open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...

-compliant computer operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP
NEXTSTEP
NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...

, BSD, and other free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 projects.

Darwin forms the core set of components upon which Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, Apple TV, and iOS are based. It is compatible with the Single UNIX Specification
Single UNIX Specification
The Single UNIX Specification is the collective name of a family of standards for computer operating systems to qualify for the name "Unix"...

 version 3 (SUSv3) and POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...

 UNIX applications and utilities.
Darwin's heritage began with NeXT
NeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...

's NeXTSTEP
NEXTSTEP
NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...

 operating system (later known as OPENSTEP
OpenStep
OpenStep was an object-oriented application programming interface specification for an object-oriented operating system that used a non-NeXTSTEP operating system as its core, principally developed by NeXT with Sun Microsystems. OPENSTEP was a specific implementation of the OpenStep API developed...

), first released in 1989.
 
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