Parts of it are. The kernel is derived from a Mach microkernel (an experimental kernel in the 80s, which was theoretically supposed to allow different OS personalities to coexist in the same system, sharing resources; macOS’ Darwin/XNU kernel doesn’t implement this capability in full, but you do get the Mach Ports interprocess communication mechanism, and a BSD UNIX personality permanently attached).
Yes, and the FreeBSD kernel is also derived from it, but they both formed out of that. One to form NeXT mach and the other Net, which forked to NetBSD and FreeBSD. But macOS Mach isn’t derived from the FreeBSD fork.
Really? They might use some GNU programs, but I’m sure the default user land for OpenBSD is all theirs. Just because you know cp etc. as GNU utils doesn’t mean the BSDs use the same ones. They are just part of the operating system. github.com/dcantrell/bsdutils tried to collect various BSD implementations for example
I always figured BSD should lean into the daemon imagery with a full heavy-metal branding: a suite of wallpapers with decidedly less cuddly daemons, a succubus OS-tan character… make it the go-to Edgelord Desktop.
Then FreeBSD introduced that stupid sphere logo. No sense of branding. :P