Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 18:25:11 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Bill Vermillion <bill@bilver.magicnet.net> Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD UNIX? Message-ID: <19980117182511.02714@lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <199801170043.TAA03250@bilver.magicnet.net>; from Bill Vermillion on Fri, Jan 16, 1998 at 07:43:30PM -0500 References: <19980117090750.07770@lemis.com> <199801170043.TAA03250@bilver.magicnet.net>
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On Fri, Jan 16, 1998 at 07:43:30PM -0500, Bill Vermillion wrote: > Recently Greg Lehey said: >> On Thu, Jan 15, 1998 at 05:38:44PM +0200, Ruslan Shevchenko wrote: >>> Das Devaraj wrote: > >>>> (This is _reluctantly_ sent to freeBSD-isp also, in case the >>>> commercial folks - ISPs - see it in a different light). > >>>> Can I _legally_ claim that my box running FreeBSD is UNIX? >>>> Or should it phrased that the OS is a _UNIX clone_. Note that > >>> clone. UNIX is register trademark of X/Open.www.xopen.org > >> As used in computing, a clone is a copy made to imitate the original. >> That definition doesn't fit FreeBSD. It's more like a disowned member >> of the family. > > But it's really not disowned. When the first BSD started from the > old version 7 at Berkeley, it was built upon the AT&T code. I think we're disagreeing about the term "disowned". > The 4.4 Lite was the BSD distribution with all AT&T copyrighted > code taken from it. Since BSD was >THE< Unix for most of the > educational world, I think that BSD is closer to the original than > all the Sys V variants - that have strayed a long way from the > 'true course' :-). > > If you look at the BSD manual from O'Reilly, a good hunk of them > are just reprints (with slight modifications) from the old Version > 7 Bell Labs books I have from about 1983. > > It even feels more like the old stuff than most of the newer OS'es. > But this is just my own warped opinion. Fine. You're saying "BSD is the real UNIX". I'm saying "yes, but we're not allowed to call it UNIX, because the other side of the family has reserved that name for themselves". That's why I call it disowned. Greg
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