Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 14:11:05 -0700 From: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> To: "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@nwlink.com> Cc: m bram <brambostic@yahoo.com>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Question about freeBSD vs Unix Message-ID: <200008252111.e7PLB5U01228@ptavv.es.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 23 Aug 2000 21:44:38 PDT." <Pine.SOL.3.96.1000823213500.29016A-100000@utah>
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> Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 21:44:38 -0700 (PDT) > From: "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@nwlink.com> > Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > > On Wed, 23 Aug 2000, m bram wrote: > > > Hi. A quick question. Does freeBSD basically emulate a UNIX system. In > > other words, if I knew how to work under a unix administrator, would I > > therefore be totally comfortable with a freeBSD system. ARe there majore > > differences? Thanks for taking the time to read this & respond. > > As far as the question you asked goes, FreeBSD _is_ an operating system > that descends from Berkeley unix. FreeBSD is unix. (as far as I am > concerned) It does not emulate unix. It cannot legally be called Unix > owing to trademark issues. Sort of. In the convoluted path from AT&T to today, the Unix source code and rights to the name were sold to Novell, now Caldera. Novell later re-sold the rights to the code base for SCO. As far as I know, SCO still owns these rights. But the name "UNIX" was given to X/Open which has adopted a complex standard of what is "UNIX". These go well beyond Posix. Any "UNIX like" system may apply to X/Open for the right to use the "UNIX" name. Compaq has the right to call Tru64 UNIX. Several other Unix implementations also have the certification, but as far as I know, all are commercial. (I assume X/Open wants payment for the certification and the various BSD projects are unlikely to want to spend money like this.) > > FreeBSD is unix (lower case) but not Unix(tm). Actually, FreeBSD IS Unix. Just look at the box it comes in (from Fry's, CompUSA or other retail outlet). The word is clearly placed right on the front of the box. (The word "FreeBSD" is much harder to find since the folks at BSDI thought that "Free" could be a negative.) R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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