The compliance trope that a point-in-time-assessment can't be used to support a claim is kind of a lazy take. The certification explicitly states macOS v26.0 Tahoe.
While it's true that it wasn't always truly UNIX compliant, they put in the hard yards to become so (albeit to avoid a $200M lawsuit from The Open Group) [1]
To certify any version of macOS as UNIX, the security had to be significantly altered (disabling SIP) among a few other things. This is why what is shipped is not what is certified as UNIX. You can /make/ it match what is certified as an administrator, but that would be inadvisable.
EDIT: And really, UNIX certification means nothing except to potentially government agencies and people who don't understand what UNIX and/or UNIX certification is. Or why being "certified UNIX" is generally meaningless: see the BSDs, which are much closer to "UNIX" origins than macOS will ever be.
Or Windows, which is frankly just has better architected internals and abandons legacy UNIX ;-)
> Or Windows, which is frankly just has better architected internals and abandons legacy UNIX ;-)
Current macOS user, and former NT kernel dabbler and VMS user here. That's highly debatable.
On the kernel side, Windows is still filled with legacy VMS-isms. Eg: Object Manager (object/resource model), named objects, handles, how processes and threads work, vmem, scheduling etc etc
On the userspace side, Windows is still filled with legacy DOS-isms.
Don't me wrong, I love the underlying Windows OS, despite its many quirks, but it's filled with perhaps even more legacy cruft and definitely isn't any sort of step above anything else.
I also don't believe anyone actually runs macOS in a UNIX-compliant configuration. Rather, it's a checkbox on some RFP and nobody is clued into why it's actually there, because all the people that did know have since retired.
Im sorry, but i dont buy that. Unix certification has nothing to do with number of processes running or "efficiency"! The OS must be SUS compliant, i.e have all the core interfaces in place, all the correct utilities (awk, grep, vi, sed etc) and theres something about header files, filesystem requirements etc. even if the macOS submitted for certification is super trimmed down, it does not matter as long as its a true subset of what is shipped to consumers.
MacOS is certified UNIX i.e its "UNIX", like it or not. On this point the article is just wrong.
Unix is both a family of operating systems and also a trademark. The name is overloaded - "Unix" is more than one thing at the same time. In addition, the trademark is "UNIX" and the operating system family is "Unix"
MacOS is both UNIX and also not Unix at the same time.
If the trademark holders decided to UNIX certify my cat, which is well within their legal right to do so, would that make her UNIX?
The compliance trope that a point-in-time-assessment can't be used to support a claim is kind of a lazy take. The certification explicitly states macOS v26.0 Tahoe.
While it's true that it wasn't always truly UNIX compliant, they put in the hard yards to become so (albeit to avoid a $200M lawsuit from The Open Group) [1]
[1] https://www.quora.com/What-goes-into-making-an-OS-to-be-Unix...
To certify any version of macOS as UNIX, the security had to be significantly altered (disabling SIP) among a few other things. This is why what is shipped is not what is certified as UNIX. You can /make/ it match what is certified as an administrator, but that would be inadvisable.
https://www.osnews.com/story/141633/apples-macos-unix-certif...
EDIT: And really, UNIX certification means nothing except to potentially government agencies and people who don't understand what UNIX and/or UNIX certification is. Or why being "certified UNIX" is generally meaningless: see the BSDs, which are much closer to "UNIX" origins than macOS will ever be.
Or Windows, which is frankly just has better architected internals and abandons legacy UNIX ;-)
> is. Or why being "certified UNIX" is generally meaningless: see the BSDs, which are much closer to "UNIX" origins than macOS will ever be
MacOS is BSD over Mach, which is itself derived from BSD.
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> Or Windows, which is frankly just has better architected internals and abandons legacy UNIX ;-)
Current macOS user, and former NT kernel dabbler and VMS user here. That's highly debatable.
On the kernel side, Windows is still filled with legacy VMS-isms. Eg: Object Manager (object/resource model), named objects, handles, how processes and threads work, vmem, scheduling etc etc
On the userspace side, Windows is still filled with legacy DOS-isms.
Don't me wrong, I love the underlying Windows OS, despite its many quirks, but it's filled with perhaps even more legacy cruft and definitely isn't any sort of step above anything else.
I also don't believe anyone actually runs macOS in a UNIX-compliant configuration. Rather, it's a checkbox on some RFP and nobody is clued into why it's actually there, because all the people that did know have since retired.
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Im sorry, but i dont buy that. Unix certification has nothing to do with number of processes running or "efficiency"! The OS must be SUS compliant, i.e have all the core interfaces in place, all the correct utilities (awk, grep, vi, sed etc) and theres something about header files, filesystem requirements etc. even if the macOS submitted for certification is super trimmed down, it does not matter as long as its a true subset of what is shipped to consumers.
MacOS is certified UNIX i.e its "UNIX", like it or not. On this point the article is just wrong.
Unix is both a family of operating systems and also a trademark. The name is overloaded - "Unix" is more than one thing at the same time. In addition, the trademark is "UNIX" and the operating system family is "Unix"
MacOS is both UNIX and also not Unix at the same time.
If the trademark holders decided to UNIX certify my cat, which is well within their legal right to do so, would that make her UNIX?
Unlike macOS, your cat does not, and will not, meet the industry-accepted standard that describes unix as we know it today.
https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/xym0.htm
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Or perhaps they just won't certify your cat just as Apple won't start making Windows PCs…?