macOS NeXTSTEP Origins

Discussions center on the historical lineage of macOS and OS X as derivatives of NeXTSTEP, including its Mach kernel, BSD/UNIX foundations, and Apple's acquisition of NeXT after Copland's failure.

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Keywords

e.g SPARC US AIX UNIX XNU PA UI OPENSTEP NEXTSTEP mach os unix mac mac os bsd macos kernel apple osx

Sample Comments

pjmlp Sep 3, 2017 View on HN

There is still macOS as NeXTSTEP derivative.

qarl Jun 25, 2025 View on HN

You're thinking of NeXTSTEP. Before OS X.

valuearb Dec 30, 2020 View on HN

iOS was based off NextStep, just like OSX.

SeanLuke Dec 13, 2021 View on HN

You do know that MacOS predates NeXTSTEP, right?

kelsey98765431 Jun 10, 2024 View on HN

Fun fact! NeXT was a commercial att unix fork. The transition from the unix base to the BSD base did infact happen at apple after the acquisition. The value of next was in its application library, which would eventually become the mac foundation libraries like coreaudio and cocoa etc. The earliest releases of Rhapsody are very illuminative about the architecture of XNU/OSX. I don't doubt that linux was considered. There's a specific time when the actual move of rhapsody to a freeb

mistrial9 Dec 30, 2022 View on HN

early OSX being NeXTStep, not A/UX I would think.. all of this was very early days

Mpdreamz Nov 12, 2011 View on HN

Didn't apple choose NeXT largely in part of beOS notoriously hard to skin nature?

Kwpolska Nov 1, 2023 View on HN

Mac OS X is a descendant of NeXTStep. It shares no code in common with classic Mac OS.

reactordev Dec 19, 2025 View on HN

MacOS was absolutely derived from BSD through NeXTSTEP.

saagarjha Jul 22, 2020 View on HN

iOS≠macOS≠NeXTSTEP, but all three run Mach kernels.