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OS X apps that 'shell out' to the BSD under-pinnings could be an issue. The CLI options can differ between Linux and BSD/Darwin.

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That would seem to me to be the least of the problems. Just as you can install GNU coreutils on OS X, you can compile the BSD utilities to run on Linux as well.

I wasn't saying that it was impossible to run them. I'm just commenting on an issue that was immediately apparent to me.

If a program calls '/usr/bin/nc' and expect BSD options, it's not going to get them. "Replace GNU coreutils with BSD coreutils" is an option, but not one that everyone would be ready to jump at, because now things running on your Linux system that expect GNU options won't be getting them.

You can use chroot to solve this problem.

You can use chroot, or you can have the OS X porting layer delegate those calls to the BSD tools transparently.

chroot!

A shim to handle common tools and remap the options would be feasible.

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