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From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.os.mach
Subject: Re: How many machines running Mach?
Message-ID: <7689@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 8 May 91 17:15:57 GMT
References: <7644@auspex.auspex.com> <1991May7.163912.615@bwdls61.bnr.ca>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 16

>I in fact asked, "Does this mean, you need not have Mach to be 
>certified as an OSF/1 compliant OS?", and the response I got back was
>"Yes, you don't need Mach to be OSF compliant".

Well, to be fair, as I understand it, the term "OSF/1" may refer both to
a specification and to an implementation; no, you don't need Mach to be
compliant with the specification, but the implementation of that
specification that you get from OSF is based on Mach, and may be the
easiest way to get a system compliant with the specification.  (It's
sort of like the SVID and System V; you don't *need* AT&T's code to be
SVID-compliant, but the easiest way to be SVID-compliant may be to use
it.)

So, while an OSF/1-compliant system may not be based on Mach, an OSF/1
system - in the sense of a system built from OSF's code - is based on,
among other things, Mach.