Patch (computing)

A patch is a piece of software designed to update a computer program or its supporting data, to fix or improve it. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, with such patches usually called bugfixes or bug fixes, and improving the usability or performance. Although meant to fix problems, poorly designed patches can sometimes introduce new problems (see software regressions). In some special cases updates may knowingly break the functionality, for instance, by removing components for which the update provider is no longer licensed or disabling a device.

Patch management is the process of using a strategy and plan of what patches should be applied to which systems at a specified time.

Types

Patches for proprietary software are typically distributed as executable files instead of source code. This type of patch modifies the program executable—the program the user actually runs—either by modifying the binary file to include the fixes or by completely replacing it.

OS X

OS X (pronounced /oʊˌɛsˈtɛn/, oh-ess-TEN; originally Mac OS X) is a series of Unix-based graphical interface operating systems (OS) developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is designed to run on Macintosh computers, having been pre-installed on all Macs since 2002. OS X is the fourth most popular general purpose OS; within the market of desktop, laptop and home computers, and by web usage, OS X is the second most widely used desktop OS after Windows.

OS X was the successor to Mac OS 9, released in 1999, the final release of the "classic" Mac OS, which had been Apple's primary operating system since 1984. The first version released was Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999; a desktop version, Mac OS X v10.0 "Cheetah" followed on March 24, 2001. All consumer releases of OS X up to 2013 were named after big cats; for example, OS X v10.8 was referred to as "Mountain Lion". However, with the announcement of OS X Mavericks in June 2013, this was dropped in favor of Californian landmarks.

OS X, whose X is the Roman numeral for 10 and is a prominent part of its brand identity, is built on technologies developed at NeXT between the second half of the 1980s and Apple's purchase of the company in late 1996. The 'X' is also used to emphasize the relatedness between OS X and UNIX. UNIX 03 certification has been achieved for versions 10.5 for Intel CPUs, and versions 10.6 through 10.11.iOS, the mobile OS for the iPhone, iPod Touch,iPad, and the 2nd and 3rd generation Apple TV, shares the Unix-based core and many frameworks with OS X. An unnamed variant of v10.4 powers the first generation Apple TV. Apple also formerly issued a separate line of editions for server use.