Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 13:51:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Jamie Howard <howardjp@wam.umd.edu> To: "Jasper O'Malley" <jooji@webnology.com> Cc: Brian McGroarty <BMCGROARTY@high-voltage.com>, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Marketing FreeBSD / FreeBSD as a product Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.9908061331470.17467-100000@dragon.ham.muohio.edu> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.02.9908061131250.1020-100000@mercury.webnology.com>
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On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Jasper O'Malley wrote: > FWIW, FreeBSD can't use the name UNIX anywhere. It's a trademark owned by > the X/Open Group (unless they've sold it to someone else at this point). > To use the name, an operating system needs to meet some arbitrary standard > of what a "UNIX" is, and the distributors need to pay an obscene licensing > fee. This would be better directed at -hackers, but here goes anyway. NetBSD has done a bit more than FreeBSD in adding Unix98 compatability. In userland, where I have looked, they have nl, asa, recently (like two weeks ago) they added link and unlink. There are others I cannot think of right now. Many of the missing utilities are very simple. line(1) could be implemented in about ten minutes. I'm sure there are issues with utilities that are already implemented (sum's behaviour would have to reverse). How difficult would it be (technically) to make FreeBSD Unix98 compatable?[1] There was some talk recently about Linux being certified. Who was paying for it then? Could the Open Group be coerced into cutting FreeBSD a break on the monetary cost as it is a non-profit (FreeBSD, Inc is non-profit, no?)? Would anyone who uses FreeBSD (Apple, Walnut Creek, Whistle (now IBM?), people who sell products based on FreeBSD)) be willing to contribute financially directly toward this goal? It seems to me that it is worth the technical effort (and maybe even some money) to get the right to use the "UNIX" brand name. Jamie [1] It occurs to me that any places where FreeBSD and Unix 98 conflict, the behaviour should be set via an environment option, but this is obvious. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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