Carbon
Application environment. Carbon is a set of programming interfaces derived from earlier Mac OS APIs that have been modified to work with Mac OS X, especially its kernel environment.
CGI
(Common Gateway Interface)
A script or program that adds dynamic functions to a website. It sends information back and forth between a website and an application that provides a service for the site. For example, if a user fills out a form on the site, a CGI could send the message to an application that processes the data and sends a response back to the user.
CIFS
(Common Internet File System)
A protocol that allows applications to make requests for files and services on remote computers. It is used by SMB and the open-source SAMBA, among others.
Classic (Abbreviated term for Classic application environment)
Classic makes it possible for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS 9compatible applications to run on a Mac OS X system.
Cocoa
An application environment based on object-oriented frameworks that offer both Java and Objective-C APIs.
ColorSync
Color management software used by the Quartz graphics system.
command-line interface
Application environment used to execute BSD commands; accessed via Terminal, single-user mode, >console, X11 Terminal application, and Telnet (SSH).
CUPS
(Common UNIX Printing System)
Cross-platform printing solution for UNIX environments, based on the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP).