Cupertino, CA — (press release excerpt) — Apple today announced it is 'open sourcing' the code for its innovative new Rendezvous networking technology. Rendezvous, based on open Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Standard Protocols such as IP, ARP and DNS, uses industry standard networking protocols and zero configuration… technology to automatically discover and connect devices over any IP network, such as Ethernet or 802.11-based wireless networks like Apple's Airport. Major developers such as Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, Philips, Sybase, World Book, and Xerox have announced support for Rendezvous in a broad range of products spanning network printers, consumer electronics, enterprise database management, and educational applications.

“Rendezvous is a major innovation in IP networking that creates dynamic networks of computers, devices, and software applications with zero user configuration,” said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “By supporting an open standards process and providing open source software that is available today, Apple is encouraging the rapid adoption of Rendezvous technology.”

By making the source code freely available, Apple is making it easy for developers to use Rendezvous technology in their network-enabled devices or software applications. The Rendezvous source code includes software to support UNIX, Linux, and Windows-based systems and devices. Rendezvous support is built into Mac OS X version 10.2 “Jaguar” and is used by Apple's innovative new iChat application. Apple is working closely with the IETF Zeroconf Working Group to help develop zero configuration IP networking technology and is submitting Rendezvous as an open standard as part of the ongoing IETF standardization process.

Starting today, developers can download Rendezvous as open source under the Apple Public Source License. [Note from Editor: free registration required, click 'OK' at the prompt for username/password, and then click on 'APSL Registration' to register.] Rendezvous is part of a broader open source release today from Apple which includes the Darwin 6.0.1 operating system and additional Open Directory plug-ins. Together, these underscore Apple's commitment to making core protocols freely available as open standards and open source.

 
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