Get the latest tech news
Apple's macOS Unix certification is a lie
discussion grows longer, the probability of a someone mentioning macOS is a UNIX approaches 1. In fact, it was only late last year that The Open Group announced that macOS 15.0 was, once again, certified as UNIX, continuing Apple’s long-standing tradition of certifying macOS releases as “real” UNIX®.
However, at the end of every one of these Conformance Statements, there’s a text field where the applicant can write down “additional, explanatory material that was provided by the vendor”, and it’s in these appendices where we can see just how much Apple has to cheat to ensure macOS passes the various UNIX® 03 certification tests. These are waivers granted at the sole discretion of The Open Group for a “limited number of implementation errors” that are “demonstrated to be of a minor nature, with negligible impact on interoperability or portability”. I think the reality is a lot less exciting: deep inside Apple there are probably still a few hardcore UNIX people who do actually really care about this, and they clearly don’t mind spending some work time keeping the certification train going.
Or read this on Hacker News
