From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jan 15 17:04:06 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA04987 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 15 Jan 1998 17:04:06 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA04923 for ; Thu, 15 Jan 1998 17:03:50 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA00789; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 11:33:50 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) id LAA04735; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 11:33:50 +1030 (CST) (envelope-from grog) Message-ID: <19980116113349.19517@lemis.com> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 11:33:49 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Das Devaraj Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD UNIX? References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: ; from Das Devaraj on Thu, Jan 15, 1998 at 01:44:02PM -0800 Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk On Thu, Jan 15, 1998 at 01:44:02PM -0800, Das Devaraj wrote: > (This is _reluctantly_ sent to freeBSD-isp also, in case the > commercial folks - ISPs - see it in a different light). I've taken them off again. Maybe they will, but I don't see how they can. > Can I _legally_ claim that my box running FreeBSD is UNIX? No. > Or should it phrased that the OS is a _UNIX clone_. No. It's not a clone. It's a UNIX derivative and contains much of the same source code that runs in UNIX System V. > Note that this has nothing to do with the actual power of FreeBSD. > What happened after the UNIX name was bought from AT&T by Novell (is > it public domain now?) UNIX is currently a registered trade mark of The Open Group. See http://www.rdg.opengroup.org/public/tech/unix/trademark.html for more details. > Also is there a minimum set of functionality that needs to be > supported before something is considered UNIX or even a UNIX clone? > Have heard terms like UNIX 95, X/Open branding etc. tossed around. Correct. There are such names, and they have some minimum (they must be *very* minimum) requirements, but I don't know what they are. IMO, there are three reasons why FreeBSD hasn't applied for this kind of branding: 1. It's all hype (see below) 2. It costs a lot of money. 3. There are probably some minor areas where FreeBSD would not comply, and where the FreeBSD team considers non-compliance to be superior. Those of you who have been around UNIX for a while will know that all through the 80's, 4.xBSD was the leading edge of UNIX development, and that *all* current UNIX implementations (which effectively means System V) contain large parts of almost unchanged BSD code. With this background, which of these systems may *not* be called UNIX 95? UNIX System V 4.4BSD Microsoft NT IBM OS/390 (formerly MVS) The answer is: 4.4BSD. The suits have disowned the very version of UNIX which made it what it is today. Since they also allowed such obviously non-UNIX systems as NT and OS/390 to be called UNIX, I don't think any of us care too much. Greg