Re: alternative motd and logo?
>
> 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
Yes, IF. I think anyone pretending to hold a trademark or service mark
on the for letter sequence UNIX would have a hard time claiming that
it is 'common knowledge' that that sequence of letters refers to their
product *in the minds of the people who count in a court of law*. Such
a claim is rediculous on its face. I am something of a hold-out for
tradition by using UNIX, in the future it will be unix. And LINUX will
be used in dictionaries as an example of a variety of UuNnIiXx.
But I sound like a flaming madman. That is not my point. Unix, Linux,
GNU, whatever. A lot of people contributed and deserve credit. Some
who deserve credit are *difficult* people. But they still deserve that
their pet magic phrase be preserved. Think Columbus and
America. History will record this differently from my, or your,
perception.
Is their really an important difference of opinion here?
Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is a maybe kind of thing !!!!
> 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?
I guess my position is that trademark ownership of 'UNIX' is a dead
issue. It is a word in the English language, and, probably, in all
other natural languages that have written form. Nobody 'owns' it. This
was not always so, and the fact that it has been a trademark, needs to
be considered by historians of our time, but not by us.
>
> Craig
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@quiknet.com
Reply to: