Is Linux Unix??

[mascarasnake]

dang elegant, clint. Makes me feel like I just answered "No". ;-)

----------

	It's what you make it man
	Takes time
	A little bit
	A little bit more

			-The Minutemen

dontdrill@earthlink.net
mascarasnake@mac.com
On May 30, 2004, at 12:48 AM, Clinton MacDonald wrote:

> Ed:
>
> Ed Sutherland wrote:
>> This has probably been answered before, but how do Unix (*BSD), Linux 
>> and Darwin compare? If I'm running Linux, am I running Unix?
>
> The history of Unix (and Unix-like operating systems) is complex and
> varied. What follows is my own vague recollections of what I have heard
> and read, and almost certainly contains oversimplifications and
> inaccuracies.
>
> Officially, if you are running Linux, you are *not* running Unix. Unix
> is a proprietary (and usually expensive) operating system descended 
> from
> the one started at Bell Labs in 1969 by Dennis Ritchie, Kenneth 
> Thompson
> and others. Unix was first written to run on the PDP-7 computer in the
> days of timeshared terminals. However, one of the key features that 
> made
> Unix revolutionary was that it was written in the C programming 
> language
> instead of in direct machine code. This made it the first portable
> operating system, and this was a major revolution.
>
> <http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/>
>
> BSD ("Berkeley Software Distribution") Unix is a more direct descendant
> of Unix that was rewritten to remove commercial code. Several versions
> of BSD Unix (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.) now exist that are open source.
>
> (There are some funny stories of how BSD Unix was distributed
> on-the-sly. Since early versions of BSD Unix contained lots of
> copyrighted code, it was not officially available for distribution
> without extremely high licensing fees, which most educational
> institutions could not afford. Therefore, whenever Ritchie or Thompson
> visited universities to give talks, they would "accidentally" leave the
> system tapes lying around, which were "accidentally" copied by eager
> graduate students.)
>
> Linux is a much newer operating system that was written by Linux
> Torvalds when he was a graduate student in Finland (ca. 1991). Linux
> (more accurately GNU/Linux) was designed as a Unix *work-alike*
> operating system, but was written with no knowledge of the actual Unix
> code (the ongoing SCO court battles contend that copyrighted Unix code
> has crept into the Linux -- almost certainly false, though time will 
> tell).
>
> Darwin, the "bottom" layer of Apple's Mac OS X, is derived from BSD 
> Unix
> and the Mach microkernel. Avie Tevanian, Apple's senior software
> engineer, contributed greatly to the Mach microkernel when he was
> obtaining his Ph. D. from Carnegie-Mellon University, then during his
> time at NeXT Computer. When Apple bought NeXT, they bought Steve Jobs,
> Avie Tevanian, and the Mach/BSD technology on which the NeXT operating
> system was based. Not a bad deal.
>
> Best wishes,
> Clint
>
> -- 
> Dr. Clinton C. MacDonald | <mailto:clint DOT macdonald AT sbcglobal 
> DOT net>
>
>
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