Is Linux Unix??

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Ben Ricker wrote:
> I would add one thing to this issue: Linux, on one level of comparison, 
> is most definitely LIKE Unix, if not IS Unix.

It's also important to note that while Sun concentrated on their SPARC
chip based computers, they also sell an X86 version of their UNIX
operating system Solaris. Compatability libraries exist for the X86
version of Solaris binaries to run on the X86 version of Linux and vice
versa.

One should not confuse a distrubtion e.g. Yellow Dog and a kernel e.g. Linux.
Most of the software included in Yellow Dog is not Linux, it's freeware,
must released under the GNU Public License.

With release 8 of Solaris, most of the GPL software that would run on it was 
available from Sun as an optional extra on both the X86 and SPARC
versions. Release 9, the software was included as an optional extra.

Release 10, currently in beta release, comes with the GNU software
integrated into it, to the point that CDE, the desktop manager included
with Solaris since it's early releases, has been replaced with KDE, a
desktop manager developed under Linux.

So while the kernel is different, the differences between distributions of
Linux and UNIX are becomming smaller and smaller.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson gsm@mendelson.com