OpenDarwin is a freely available, multi-platform Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) / Mach 3.0 kernel-based UNIX-like operating system.

The goal of the OpenDarwin project, founded in April 2002, is to create an independent branch of the Darwin operating system that increases collaboration between Apple developers and the open source community. Apple benefits from the project because development in OpenDarwin is often incorporated into Darwin releases; and the open source community benefits since it is given complete control over its own operating system.

The OpenDarwin developers use a version control system called Concurrent Versions System (CVS to manage changes to the OpenDarwin source code. Many of the OpenDarwin developers are Apple employees, whereas others are not. It should be noted that the OpenDarwin project is fully independant of Apple, and has complete control over it's own code, though they generally try to stay compatible with Apple's own software.

Like most modern operating systems, OpenDarwin employs a built-in kernel debugger to help the developers find kernel bugs.

The goal of the OpenDarwin project is to provide resources for open source developers to interact and produce products for Apple's Mac OS X. One of the key aspects of the project is to enable interested Mac OS X developers to be able to retrieve, modify, build, and distribute operating system changes.

The project has a Core Team, similar to the other various BSD projects. We are currently seeking contributors for all aspects of the project, and additions to the Core Team will be chosen from the most active contributors. One of the initial Core Team's first action items is to establish the rules for how future Core Team and project members will be selected.

Current OpenDarwin core team members: Rob Braun - Founder of darwinfo.org (a now

defunct darwin information site), maintainer of xinetd, and contributing author to the UNIX System Administration Handbook.

Kevin Van Vechten - The Darwin team at Apple.

Torrey T. Lyons - A committer on the XFree86 Project, Torrey is the founder of the XonX Project. He is a scientist at Mission Research Corporation, Los Angeles.

The OpenDarwin project is always looking for talented individuals to contribute to and join the project. To contribute to the OpenDarwin project, you can join some of the OpenDarwin mailing lists and participate in discussion. You can also join the IRC discussion on the #opendarwin channel on irc.freenode.net. Contributing to the project can be anything from helping others on the mailing lists to sending in patches. The website could use some enhancement and supervision as well.

We would like to thank Internet Systems Consortium, Inc. for hosting this site. They have graciously donated their time, bandwidth, power, and space to make this project a reality.

We'd also like to thank Apple Computer, Inc. for donating a PowerMac G4 to the cause.