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As some of the answers have said, there are two sides to this question.

If you mean a license, then Mac OS X is official Unix (TM).

On the other hand, if you mean does Mac OS X feel like a Unix system, I would have to say not really (or maybe "not exactly"). Mac OS X goes out of its way to hide away quite a lot of the Unix-y filesystem from you. Compare the output of ls / with opening the main hard disk drive in the GUI. It also doesn't have a compiler installed. (It is available in the box and you can install one pretty easily by installing the Xcode tools, which are readily available on one of the installer discs, but they're grouped under "Optional" or "Extra" install items. I forget the exact wording.) These are two big examples, but there are many other examples of little things that are just a bit off or different in Mac OS X. (Not good or bad, necessarily, but different.)

Apple works very hard now, I think, to provide their default "Just works" friendly face to the majority of their users while also allowing developers and geeks to treat Mac OS X like a standard *nix machine. But the result makes Mac OS X systems a bit of a compromise. (That's not necessarily a bad thing.)

Edit: It's interesting how strongly people feel about this question (me included). I think that some answerers are being very literal: It's as Unix as Unix can be because they have a piece of paper that says so from Unix (TM). Others of us are saying, "But it looks like, walks like, and quacks like a Mac. It doesn't feel at all Unix-y (much less look it)." As I said originally, I think that there are really two questions here: one about the specification and license and one about user-experience.

As some of the answers have said, there are two sides to this question.

If you mean a license, then OSX is official Unix (TM).

On the other hand, if you mean does OSX feel like a Unix system, I would have to say not really (or maybe "not exactly"). OSX goes out of its way to hide away quite a lot of the Unix-y filesystem from you. Compare the output of ls / with opening the main hard disk drive in the GUI. It also doesn't have a compiler installed. (It is available in the box and you can install one pretty easily by installing the Xcode tools, which are readily available on one of the installer discs, but they're grouped under "Optional" or "Extra" install items. I forget the exact wording.) These are two big examples, but there are many other examples of little things that are just a bit off or different in OSX. (Not good or bad, necessarily, but different.)

Apple works very hard now, I think, to provide their default "Just works" friendly face to the majority of their users while also allowing developers and geeks to treat OSX like a standard *nix machine. But the result makes OSX systems a bit of a compromise. (That's not necessarily a bad thing.)

Edit: It's interesting how strongly people feel about this question (me included). I think that some answerers are being very literal: It's as Unix as Unix can be because they have a piece of paper that says so from Unix (TM). Others of us are saying, "But it looks like, walks like, and quacks like a Mac. It doesn't feel at all Unix-y (much less look it)." As I said originally, I think that there are really two questions here: one about the specification and license and one about user-experience.

As some of the answers have said, there are two sides to this question.

If you mean a license, then OSX is official Unix (TM).

On the other hand, if you mean does OSX feel like a Unix system, I would have to say not really (or maybe "not exactly"). OSX goes out of its way to hide away quite a lot of the Unix-y filesystem from you. Compare the output of ls / with opening the main hard drive in the GUI.) It also doesn't have a compiler installed. (It is available in the box and you can install one pretty easily by installing the XCode tools, which are readily available on one of the installer discs, but they're grouped under "Optional" or "Extra" install items. I forget the exact wording.) These are two big examples, but there are many other examples of little things that are just a bit off or different in OSX. (Not good or bad, necessarily, but different.)

Apple works very hard now, I think, to provide their default "Just works" friendly face to the majority of their users while also allowing developers and geeks to treat OSX like a standard *nix machine. But the result makes OSX systems a bit of a compromise. (That's not necessarily a bad thing.)

Edit: It's interesting how strongly people feel about this question (me included). I think that some answerers are being very literal: It's as Unix as Unix can be because they have a piece of paper that says so from Unix (TM). Others of us are saying, "But it looks like, walks like, and quacks like a Mac. It doesn't feel at all Unix-y (much less look it)." As I said originally, I think that there are really two questions here: one about the specification and license and one about user-experience.

As some of the answers have said, there are two sides to this question.

If you mean a license, then Mac OS X is official Unix (TM).

On the other hand, if you mean does Mac OS X feel like a Unix system, I would have to say not really (or maybe "not exactly"). Mac OS X goes out of its way to hide away quite a lot of the Unix-y filesystem from you. Compare the output of ls / with opening the main hard disk drive in the GUI. It also doesn't have a compiler installed. (It is available in the box and you can install one pretty easily by installing the Xcode tools, which are readily available on one of the installer discs, but they're grouped under "Optional" or "Extra" install items. I forget the exact wording.) These are two big examples, but there are many other examples of little things that are just a bit off or different in Mac OS X. (Not good or bad, necessarily, but different.)

Apple works very hard now, I think, to provide their default "Just works" friendly face to the majority of their users while also allowing developers and geeks to treat Mac OS X like a standard *nix machine. But the result makes Mac OS X systems a bit of a compromise. (That's not necessarily a bad thing.)

Edit: It's interesting how strongly people feel about this question (me included). I think that some answerers are being very literal: It's as Unix as Unix can be because they have a piece of paper that says so from Unix (TM). Others of us are saying, "But it looks like, walks like, and quacks like a Mac. It doesn't feel at all Unix-y (much less look it)." As I said originally, I think that there are really two questions here: one about the specification and license and one about user-experience.

As some of the answers have said, there are two sides to this question.

If you mean a license, then OSX is official Unix (TM).

On the other hand, if you mean does OSX feel like a Unix system, I would have to say not really (or maybe "not exactly"). OSX goes out of its way to hide away quite a lot of the Unix-y filesystem from you. Compare the output of ls / with opening the main hard drive in the GUI.) It also doesn't have a compiler installed. (It is available in the box and you can install one pretty easily by installing the XCode tools, which are readily available on one of the installer discs, but they're grouped under "Optional" or "Extra" install items. I forget the exact wording.) These are two big examples, but there are many other examples of little things that are just a bit off or different in OSX. (Not good or bad, necessarily, but different.)

Apple works very hard now, I think, to provide their default "Just works" friendly face to the majority of their users while also allowing developers and geeks to treat OSX like a standard *nix machine. But the result makes OSX systems a bit of a compromise. (That's not necessarily a bad thing.)

Edit: It's interesting how strong people feel about this question (me included). I think that some answerers are being very literal: It's as Unix as Unix can be because they have a piece of paper that says so from Unix (TM). Others of us are saying, "But it looks like, walks like, and quacks like a Mac. It doesn't feel at all Unix-y (much less look it)." As I said originally, I think that there are really two questions here: one about the specification and license and one about user-experience.

As some of the answers have said, there are two sides to this question.

If you mean a license, then OSX is official Unix (TM).

On the other hand, if you mean does OSX feel like a Unix system, I would have to say not really (or maybe "not exactly"). OSX goes out of its way to hide away quite a lot of the Unix-y filesystem from you. Compare the output of ls / with opening the main hard drive in the GUI.) It also doesn't have a compiler installed. (It is available in the box and you can install one pretty easily by installing the XCode tools, which are readily available on one of the installer discs, but they're grouped under "Optional" or "Extra" install items. I forget the exact wording.) These are two big examples, but there are many other examples of little things that are just a bit off or different in OSX. (Not good or bad, necessarily, but different.)

Apple works very hard now, I think, to provide their default "Just works" friendly face to the majority of their users while also allowing developers and geeks to treat OSX like a standard *nix machine. But the result makes OSX systems a bit of a compromise. (That's not necessarily a bad thing.)

Edit: It's interesting how strongly people feel about this question (me included). I think that some answerers are being very literal: It's as Unix as Unix can be because they have a piece of paper that says so from Unix (TM). Others of us are saying, "But it looks like, walks like, and quacks like a Mac. It doesn't feel at all Unix-y (much less look it)." As I said originally, I think that there are really two questions here: one about the specification and license and one about user-experience.