From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Feb 25 2:51: 5 1999
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Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 18:40:00 +1000
From: Greg Black <gjb@comkey.com.au>
To: Gregory Sutter <gsutter@pobox.com>
Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Generic Unix term?
References: <19990223200542.L27934@orcrist.mediacity.com> <19990224175048.A10277@austin.rr.com> <19990224155800.O27934@orcrist.mediacity.com>
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> > --> There's BSD, Linux, AIX, SCO, Solaris, Citrix, etc, but is there a
> > --> single, non-copyrighted, non-trademarked term describing all systems
> > --> that are based on or function like Unix?
> >
> > I have seen *nix used a lot. BTW isn't Citrix an NT vendor a la winframe??
>
> *nix isn't a word, though. I am looking for something that can be
> spoken as well as written, and "Starnix" or "Asterisknix" just doesn't
> cut it.
There is a perfectly good word: Unix. It doesn't describe any
actual product now (since the products all have names like the
ones in the list above), and it can't seriously be claimed to
belong to anybody any longer (although I'm certain that some
noddies somewhere think they "own" it).
For my money, Unix is a fine generic term that describes a whole
family of OSes either directly derived from the work of Thomson
and Ritchie and Co or based on the ideas they originated.
Naturally, if you're looking for some term that can be used in
some situation where legal niceties might matter, then you'll
have to wrap it up in some fluff like "Unix-like" ...
--
Greg Black <gjb@acm.org>
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