[swatson741]

I agree with all of this. Moreover depending on what Torvalds chooses to do Apple may have ended up with a more expensive XNU in the end which would have been a disaster. Although I think Apple can deal with Torvalds just fine who really knows how that would have played out.

[inopinatus]

It would not be fine. It would have never been fine. It would have been a titanic clash of egos and culture, producing endless bickering and finger-pointing, with little meeting of minds. Apple runs the most vertically integrated general systems model outside of mainframes. Linux and its ecosystem represent the least.

In any case, as others have noted, the timeline here w.r.t nextstep is backwards.