Ned Harvey and a lot of other people have been writing a lot about what to call non-Windows desktop systems, and what it means to call something a "Unix" system."
First, I respectfully suggest this is a waste of time: There is only one "formal" or "legal" definition of a "Unix" system, that is, operating systems that have obtained the necessary licenses from whoever holds the trademark these days. Everything else is casual at best, and thus some- what squishy. Second, "*nix" or "Unix and Unix-like" is probably good enough for the vast majority of cases. If necessary, spell out what's included (e.g., "including Solaris, Linux, OS X, HP-UX, AIX, and others"). Finally, and this is directed particularly at Ned . . . > Every unix-like system I've used in the last 10 years . . . Unix (or Unix-like systems, if you insist) has changed over the years. Some variations share a lot of similarities, others share little at all. What's happened in the past 10 years, and indeed which variant O/Sen you've used in that time, does *NOT* define Unix. If there is any definition at all, I think it's the IEEE/Open Group "standard," a/k/a IEEE 1003.x, a/k/a "POSIX." Hoewver, even that doesn't include the long and rich history that makes up Unix. Ten years ago, I could have argued that Linux wasn't Unix because it had a lot of things that weren't present in the variants of Unix that had been around for the 10 years before that. Earlier, one might have argued that BSD2.x and 4.x weren't Unix because they had this funky thing known as "networking," and by gum, the 6th and 7th Editions didn't have no steekin' networking! At one point you said something about X Windows. Well, X is a relative newcomer to the GUI game; before it (and concurrent with it, for many years), there were things like OpenWindows, NeWS, and a few others whose names I have forgotten. By the way, X Windows is not part of the POSIX spec. :-) And "serialized binary XML" (or whatever it is)? AIX -- a licensed Unix product, if I recall correctly -- had something far more convoluted back when Apple was still selling Macs that looked like Erwin (from UserFriendly). Oh, and that POSIX thing? It mostly ignores how the system stores and managed configuration info. So, I respectfully suggest you (Ned) come down off your high horse and accept that there is no clear definition of Unix, accept that you're ignoring a lot of history, and accept that there is no "right" answer because there are simply too many ways to ask the question. Worse, if you ask all the questions, you wind up not with an answer but something that resembles Bruce Hamilton's "Rosetta Stone for Unix." AdamM (whose first Unix was v7) _______________________________________________ bblisa mailing list [email protected] http://www.bblisa.org/mailman/listinfo/bblisa
