I hope this means that it will be easier to pull in apps for/from other *nixes, and actually get them to compile without pulling one's hair out! Or better yet, in package form! Darwinports and Fink just don't provide enough variety--while I appreciate their efforts...

As long as the source that you are compiling is designed to compile on Unix, then you should not have a problem. The problem is that many of those packages are written for Linux not Unix.

I don't think this is a big deal. Microsoft have more POSIX certs than almost anyone for example. FOSS can't afford these expensive certs yet Linus' code made it to Mars with NASA vehicles. Ars wrote that this 03 means programmers can know their code works on other 03 platforms but the major players are not and will not go for these certs. Seriously: SCO are 03 certified and we all know where they stand on "open source". After the brouhaha with Open Darwin it appears as if Apple want to crush FOSS if anything.

remember the old maxim "no one ever got fired for buying ibm." (that was true once.) apple probably doesn't want explicitly to crush f&o software, but to carve out market share. should f&os disappear they probably wouldn't shed a tear, but neither will they engage in any MS-like skulduggery to wring money out of open source foundations for concocted "IP infringements."

in the interest of carving out market share, unix certification is going to make it easier for IT people to make a claim similar to that of the old IBM saw; and that, apple hopes, will bring in lots of moolah. they're probably right.

Perhaps you have missed the point. The certification isn't for US. It's for THEM.
Lard, I mean LARGE, scale procurement operations are generally run by mindless, pencil-neck, bureaucrat drones with no knowledge of IT. That's why they have ISO guideline manuals that take up entire shelves. If it says in their Big Manual-O-$#!%-We-Can-Buy that it has to be certified UNIX, then it doesn't matter if MacOS can fly the space shuttle and find the highest prime number while juggling POSIX certs.

O MY GOD!!! finally a website for total ARTARDS!!!!!!!!!!

Pardon the newbie question, but does anyone know if OS X 10.5 will require a firmware change to my MDD G4 that will destroy its ability to boot OS 9? Will it be possible, do you think, to preserve this ability if I partition my hard disk? Thanks for your input.