A very nice piece
by CNET's David Becker on the relationship between Apple Computer and Adobe Systems Inc.. Both companies are
richer because of each other's existence. Adobe committed early to the
Macintosh platform and always made sure that updates of applications
like Photoshop were out on the Mac platform before they were on
Windows. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that that Apple would make
the big jump from Mac OS 9 to the Mac OS X, a lot of observers wondered
if that was such a good idea. That's because the code base for OS X,
based as it is on a Linux kernel, was so radically different from OS 9
that Apple would be asking all its developer partners to re-code, at
great expense, its Apple applications.
Luckily for Apple, Adobe was right there as an early adopter and backer
of OS X and other developers took their cue from Adobe.
Similarly, Apple built machines that exploited all the great software
innovations pioneered by Adobe co-founder John Warnock, notably the
early adoption of the PostScript printing language. Apple's computers,
displays, and printers were among the earliest and best to render
digital typefaces the way Warnock conceived of them. Apple's commitment
to help realize Warnock's vision helped Adobe.
But now, to use Becker's metaphor, the relationship between Apple and
Adobe is like any marriage that's lasted 20 years:
They share an area code, a customer segment and a history dating back
to the early days of personal computing. But Apple Computer and Adobe
Systems, like many in long-term relationships, have seen the
20-years-and-counting bond between them run hot and cold.
Right now, it's in a colder period. Signs of frost have been
accumulating for the past couple of years, with Adobe dropping
Macintosh support for several software products and introducing others
as Microsoft Windows-only applications. At the same time, Apple has
quietly pushed Adobe out of a few markets by selling its own
applications or bundling them into its OS X operating system.
OS is not based on the Linux kernel. OS X is based on the Mach microkernel, with a BSD Unix subsystem on top of it. This is not the same thing as saying that OS X is built on any particular BSD kernel (say, FreeBSD). A good description of the OS kernel architecture is at ArsTechnica here.