Apple said the move, part of the so-called "open source" movement fuelled in part by the emergence of the Linux operating system, will hopefully get more developers interested in its Mac OS server software.

The Cupertino, California-based company, which unveiled its Mac OS X Server software on Tuesday, said the move was the first time a major computer maker has made any of its system software available to the open source community.The new Mac OS Server software will be used to host websites and run networks of Macintosh computers, which are especially important in the education market where many schools use Macintoshes.

"By putting our source code out there and making it freely available, they (developers) will make improvements," Apple's interim chiefexecutive and co-founder Steve Jobs told a press conference at Apple's Cupertino headquarters.

Jobs also brought out Eric Raymond, the president of the Open Source Initiative and Brian Behlendorf, a co-founder of the Apache webserver software project, to voice their support for Apple's move.

The open source software movement has been getting a lot of notice as many major computer and software companies have announced support of the Linux operating system that is given away over the internet.

Linux is a version of the Unix operating system, developed by Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds and maintained by a group of far-flung programmers.Apple called its open source release of the Mac OS Server "Darwin". The first release of Darwin contains the foundation layer of the Mac OS X Server and some components that are already freely available to developers over the internet, such as the Mach 2.5 Microkernel, the BSD 4.4 operating system, a layer of the Unix multi-user operating system and the Apachewebserver.

"They didn't make open any of the real proprietary stuff, like Web Objects or Open Step," said Lou Mazzucchelli, a Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co analyst. "But those (the layers available) are fundamental layers and people will have a chance to play with those." Jobs declined to comment on whether Apple planned to offer other future Apple software to developers using the open source model, saying that the move was its first experiment.

"We will see," Jobs said. "This is our first open source experience, but we have high hopes for it." He said Apple hopes its experience with open source becomes a model such as the Linux and Apache.

Analysts said it was unlikely that Apple would ever make available the entire source code to the company's core Macintosh operating system, the next version of which will be called Mac OS X (ten).

"That is unlikely," said Chris Le Toq, an analyst at Gartner Group's Dataquest. "Their OS (operating system) depends on a proprietary hardware system."

Apple said thatMac OS X Server is available now at a lower price than it had originally planned in January. Apple said it has priced Mac OS X Server at $499 for an unlimited client license. It is also available preloaded on a Macintosh Server G3 computer for $4,999.