[Info-vax] What is a "real" Unix ?

[bill]

On 9/4/2023 8:34 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-09-04, Scott Dorsey <kludge at panix.com> wrote:
>> Simon Clubley  <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>>
>>> Or is Linux really a Unix after all (in every way that matters) and what's
>>> really going on here is just some out-of-touch BSD Unix elitism ?
>>
>> I think that philosophically Linux started out with the Unix philosophy but
>> is rather quickly drifting away from it now.  There's a lot of giant
>> monolithic stuff in Linux, from gnome2 to systemd, which is somewhat
>> contrary to the original Unix philosophy.  Linux has succumbed to the urge
>> to put everything possible into the kernel and this is very non-Ritchie.
>> --scott
> 
> Gnome 2 has nothing to do with Unix as it's just a GUI (that could run
> just as well on VMS if VMS had the required functionality).
> Unfortunately, Gnome 2 worked way too well, so Gnome 3 was invented...

I believe he is talking philosophy.  The Unix paradigm is many small
tools combined to accomplish a task, for example:
              cat paper.txt | eqn | pic | troff | lpr linotype.dev

Another simpler example  is the use of "find" and "cpio".

The example frequently given was:
        find . -depth -print | cpio -padm /mydir

I believe this can now be done with a single command where "find"
invokes "cpio" internally.

Further proof of the rise in single utility complexity over the
software tools approach can be seen by simply comparing the man
pages for "find".  On Ultrix-11 (V7 Unix) it is 132 lines.  On
Linux today, 1313 lines.

> 
> With regards to systemd, people were saying the Linux is not Unix
> thing even back in the days of init scripts before systemd was even
> a thing.

Actually. Linus went to a lot of trouble getting AT&T to verify that
what he wrote was not Unix.

> 
> However, to develop that point, there are some systemd-free distributions.
> Would they be considered to be Unix, and if not, why not ?

Today, you have Unix and Unix-lookalike.  Unix is a trademark
and only the trademark holder can determine what is and isn't
Unix.  To be honest, I don't think anyone really cares anymore.

bill