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A FreeBSD "Spork" With Touches of NeXT and OS X: NeXTBSD
There are a lot of open source operating systems out there; being open source, they lend themselves to forks, clones or near clones, and friendly offshoots. There are even services to let you customize, download, and (if you choose) bulk-install your own OS based on common components. Phoronix notes a new project called NeXTBSD that might turn more heads than most new open source OSes, in part because of the developers behind it, and in part because of the positive thoughts many people have toward the aesthetics of NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X. (And while it might be a fork of FreeBSD, the developers would rather call it a spork, instead.)
NeXTBSD was announced last week by Jordan Hubbard and Kip Macy at the Bay Area FreeBSD Users Group (BAFUG). NeXTBSD / FreeBSD X is based on the FreeBSD-CURRENT kernel while adding in Mach IPC, Libdispatch, notifyd, asld, launchd, and other components derived from Apple's open-source code for OS X. The basic launchd/notifyd/asld/libdispatch stack atop their "fork" of FreeBSD is working along with other basic components of their new design.
You can watch a recording of the announcement as well as a longer introduction linked from Phoronix's story.
http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/08/26/0
Correct link
The targeted usecase is FreeNAS, and previous presentations by Jordan Hubbard made clear that he want to restructure the project to better manage daemons and configuration. Don't expect any graphical display stuff, they are from the proprietary stuff from apple, the only things that can be imported are bits from Darwin. Expect at some point wayland port depending on how much upstream is deep in their little linux world, but I don't think that'll come from a iXsystems. Expect maybe some graphical stuff from the lumina project, but not a complete DE like KDE, Gnome or MacOSX (more likely a nice "lightweight" Qt desktop).
No systemd - they're using Apple's launchd instead.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Kip Macy is the asshole. Dubbed the Landlord from Hell, he and his wife Nicole terrorized their tenants by turning off the gas, cutting floor joists to destabilize the building, kicking one in the chest, and threatening them with a gun. The prosecutor offered a deal that included less than a year in county jail with time served and a fine instead of state prison. He and his wife decided to jump a $500K bail put up by Kip's parents and go to Europe, where he continued to do work on FreeBSD. The developers know his history and continued to work with him, essentially the harbored him. Although the two were eventually found and brought back, Kip's parents ended up forfeiting the bail. Both Kip and Nicole did a stint in state prison for some felonies. In a jail house interview, Kip refused to take responsibility, still blaming his tenants. I guess writing code trumps criminal behavior.
The FreeBSD Project has a problem harboring unrepentant douche bags like Kip Macy, and also Randi Harper.
Ohhhh so its going to be systemd for BSD?
Yes and no.
Some of the legacy Unix issues that systemd is supposedly intended to address have been attacked by Apple in the tools NeXTBSD is adopting: ASL, LaunchD, GCD/LibDispatch, NotifyD, etc. Note that unlike systemd, the Darwin replacements for traditional init, cron, & syslog aren't monolithic and are relatively mature. LaunchD & ASL have been evolving for over a decade in mass-market OS releases and it is apparent to anyone using them attentively in MacOS over that time that Apple has been working to make them actual improvements for admins and developers interacting with them over the legacy tools, rather than merely replacements. They were both problematic in their earliest releases, but they both have been developed over time to the point where they no longer seem like the products of CS theoreticians who've never managed real systems.
Beyond that, I think it is safe to assert that there is MUCH more well-earned community goodwill towards Hubbard & Macy than there ever has been or ever could be for Poettering, so the social drama isn't preset for tragedy in the event that the project is unremarkable for a while.