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

[Scott Dorsey]

Simon Clubley  <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> 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.
>
>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...

Well, strictly speaking Linux is just a kernel and not the whole operating
system.  Everything that makes it work, from the shell to the software tools
packages, are not really Linux.  Most of them are GNU products.  But people
think of the whole distribution together as "Linux" even though strictly
speaking it isn't.

>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.

That's because it's not Unix.  Unix is a trademark of Lucent now.

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

If they are licensed by Lucent who owns the trademark, then yes.  If not,
then not.  Lucent gets to decide.  If Lucent wants to license that trademark
to VMS or to a washing machine, they can.  Then they would be Unix.  But
Lucent has not licensed it to any Linux distributor.
--scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."