[geeks] UNIX(TM)/UNIX/Unix/Multic's Ugly Stepchild

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Tue, 14 Sep 2004 @ 09:41 +0200, Jochen Kunz said:

> > UNIX is an API, toolset, and a set of assumptions and even a few
> > codified rules.
> \begin{nitpicking}
> That is Unix. UNIX is AT&T SysV. ;-)
> \end{nitpicking}

The UNIX(TM) differ just as much from one another as Linux or *BSD does
from each other, so I don't think the nitpick is valid any longer.

Since AT&T/Bell Labs no longer releases UNIX systems like they did in
the 70s and 80s, it's kind of a moot point.

I don't really give a damn what happened after the research years,
because IMHO the commercial vendors made a mess of it all.

> Also common on many product descriptions: "Supports Linux and Unix."
> This is the kind of nonsense, that makes me "Grmbl".

Yeah, well... people have this thing about brands and buzzwords.  Drives
me nuts too.

That's one reason why I bristle at this UNIX versus Unix stuff: we are
better off thinking of all of it as UNIX, and enforcing compatibility
between all the versions.

We can't do anything but lose by acknowledging the mostly legal issue of
UNIX versus Unix.

Tue, 14 Sep 2004 @ 10:38 -0400, Joshua Boyd said:

> And where does one get AT&T SysV?  As one can't I think BSD is the next
> purest thing, and NetBSD strikes me as the purest of the BSDs (unless
> one really wants to go back 4.3 or somesuch).

NetBSD especially in its base build feels a lot like an old UNIX
machine.

Tue, 14 Sep 2004 @ 12:02 -0700, lefa at ucsc.edu said:

> To be nitpick, BSD's are the purest NON-Unix OS's out there. Since they
> were rewriten from scratch to not have Unix code in them. 

Um, no.  BSD is as much UNIX as any UNIX(TM) is.  

Consider:

BSD's were not rewritten.  BSD started as a software distribution (libs,
OS code, utilities, etc) that enhanced UNIX(TM) systems.  That's what
BSD stands for: Berkeley Software Distribution.

CSRG started releasing their own BSD UNIX, which at first was UNIX(TM)
with BSD added, and it just kind of grew from there.  They kept doing
OS research, and in many ways surpassed UNIX(TM) in capability.  BSD
also triggered a lot of other OS research projects, both UNIX based and
totally new.

Eventually this drew fire from AT&T lawyers, and they were forced to
rewrite some of it, but this amounted to a tiny fraction of the code.

The code in BSD that was changed from UNIX(TM) was changed for entirely
technical reasons, not political or legal, with the exception of a tiny,
tiny amount of code after the famous lawsuit.

I think it was something like 5 files that had to be rewritten, or some
small number like that.

The fact is too, that the BSD group contributed a lot of code back to
UNIX(TM).

I don't see how anyone could say that BSD is not UNIX.

> And as far as I know they can not be called Unix at all. Wasn't there
> some lawsuit at the end of the 80's between Unix System Labs and UC?

You also can't say kleenex, but how many of you say tissue instead?

Wed, 15 Sep 2004 @ 09:33 +0200, Jochen Kunz said:

> Yes and no. Depends on definition.
> Yes, (Net)BSD is the most "unixish" OS out there.
> No, (Free|Net|Open)BSD has no UNIX code inside.
> 
> BSD ist not UNIX, but a Unix-like OS. The same for Linux.

We'll have to agree to disagree then.  I think BSD is as much UNIX,
actually more, than any current UNIX(TM).

Wed, 15 Sep 2004 @ 12:39 +0100, Mike Meredith said:

> On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 09:33:11 +0200, Jochen Kunz wrote:
> > BSD ist not UNIX, but a Unix-like OS. The same for Linux.
> 
> In the dim and distant past, some people used to claim in the middle of
> those irritating debates about whether BSD or ATT UNIX was "purer", that
> the only true UNIX was Research UNIX.

Unfortunately, its dead.

Plan9 is their current gig.

I like the ideas there, but hate the loss of the tty.

I *HATE* systems that require graphics.  I don't see any reasonable way
to set up Plan9 application and file servers without using a GUI.

I'd love to find out I'm wrong though, and that this is possible.

I've run Plan9 a couple of times, but the lack of hardware support makes
it hard to do more than look briefly.

> As the later versions of Research UNIX were based on BSD (and of course
> BSD was based on earlier Research UNIX releases), you could argue that
> *BSD are just as UNIX as the "real thing":)

Exactimundo!



-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["Work for something because it is good, not
just because it stands a chance to succeed." -- Vaclav Havel]