Paul E Condon wrote: > On Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 05:15:51PM -0500, Kirk Strauser wrote: > > > > At 2002-08-01T20:57:29Z, Paul E Condon <pecondon@quiknet.com> writes: > > > > > Linux is a version of UNIX > > > > That's not correct. Linux was written to be similar to a Unix system, but > > is *not* a Unix system. Source? The first sentence at > > http://www.linux.org/ . > > What I see there is: > > "Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus > Torvalds with the assistance of ..." > > Of course the only *true* UNIX is one invented by Ritchie and Thompson > and reported by them, et al., in The Bell System Technical Journal, > v57 #6 , Jul-Aug 1978. All others are merely 'Unix-type', or, as I said > 'version of UNIX'. > > I my opinion, UNIX is a class object, there are a small, but > un-countable number of instantiations of this class. The number is > un-countable because of manifest difficulties in reaching a consensus > on what UNIX 'really is'. If UNIX is still a legally-protected trademark for computer operating systems (is it?), then it would be best not to use the word for anything that is not based directly on some version of official UNIX code. Thus, SysV and UnixWare could all be considered "UNIX", and *BSD also (based on the history that BSD was originally a fork of AT&T Unix that became independent of that codebase over time), but implementations sharing no code with them (Hurd, Linux, ...) should not. I don't know the history of GNU to a sufficient level of detail to know if this was specifically RMS's intent in saying that "GNU's Not Unix", but it wouldn't surprise me. Ultimately, nomenclatural issues like this all depend on what aspect of the truth you are most interested in at the moment. It is true, on the one hand, that Linux is so much like UNIX that for many practical purposes there is no need to distinguish between them. It is also true that Linux shares no code with UNIX (TM), is not owned by the same organization, and is not covered by the same trademarks and copyrights. So Linux is and is not UNIX, depending on how you look at it. Does that make things clearer? Craig
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