COMMENT - Sherwood Forest expands as Apple plants itself in Robin Hood's camp.

The Sheriff of Nottingham is the title that was bestowed upon Microsoft's Ed Muth by open source advocate Eric Raymond. However, the Microsoft group product marketing manager brought the name-calling on himself when he said that "complex future projects to add such functions as automatic translation of e-mail require big teams and big capital. These are things that Robin Hood and his merry band in Sherwood Forest aren't well attuned to do."

The main objection by the merry band is that these future projects have already happened. The most common e-mail server is Sendmail, and the most common web server is Apache - both open-source projects.

The unruly (literally) band of open-source programmers must be doing something right. Other recent news includes the 'shipping' of the Linux 2.2 kernel, plus three minor bug-fix releases and the first complete version of the Gnome advanced user interface. Furthermore, the number of major vendors joining them continues to grow. The latest is Apple, which has traditionally been even less inclined to share its trade secrets than Microsoft.

The many faces of MacOS X Server

On 16 March, MacOS X Server (codenamed Rhapsody, formerly OpenStep for Mach, formerly NextStep) finally shipped. It is a Unix-based server OS for G3 machines, with a Mac-like interface, capable of running MacOS 8.5.1 and applications in its 'Blue Box'. However, it is also a web server, a NetBoot server for a Lan of iMacs, or a Samba server for Windows PCs.

Maybe this will make up for the fact that Microsoft dropped PowerPC support for NT after NT4, when it was only added in NT3.51.

Simultaneously with this launch, Apple released the source code to certain parts of the next version of MacOS X. Like the licence IBM attached to the open-source release of its Jikes Java compiler, Apple's Public License has been criticised, mainly for the clause that allows it to withdraw the code at an unspecified time.

At least it shows willing. But why do companies do this? In Apple's case, I suspect the reasoning is twofold. Firstly, it has supported open-source development for some time, especially in the development of MkLinux - the first effort to port Linux to PowerPC Macs. Rather than porting the kernel natively, MkLinux ran it as a process on the Mach 3.0 microkernel.

When the MacOS X strategy was decided and announced, it looks as if all Apple staff with Mach experience were immediately moved to that project, leaving MkLinux to stagnate.

The last update to www.mklinux.apple.com was back in July 1998. Since then, a different, third-party project - called LinuxPPC - has taken over and has completed a native port.

Linux's push for world domination

The other angle is that Linux is heading for the Unix big-time. Although Solaris is doing well, Sun is supporting the 64-bit port of Linux for UltraSparc processors. HP-UX is healthy, and will probably be the first Unix on Intel's IA-64 Merced processor - but HP is also offering support for Linux on its servers. Compaq, IBM and Dell all offer Linux as an option.

Silicon Graphics has released information on its new Visual Workstations, which allowed a preliminary Linux version to be booted and running within three days of the machine's release. One of its OEMs for the Mips processor range, NEC, has expressed interest in Linux-based Mips machines for the Japanese market. A recent benchmark rated a Silicon Graphics machine running Samba under Irix as the fastest Windows fileserver in the world. And yet, Microsoft dropped Mips support just after the release of NT4.

My favourite addition to the list of developers turning to Linux is an American software house. Initially it is working on MediaPlayer, but then - the anonymous source suggested - might come Office.

When not writing for Network News Liam Proven works as a consultant - designing, implementing and supporting PC and Mac networks.