OT: Unix or UNIX or unix

[Derek Broughton]

Steven Susbauer wrote:

> Christopher Chan wrote:
>>> It wasn't really accurate in numerous places.  I used SCO Unix on an
>>> intel platform, a pc, in 1991.  That was UNIX.  It ran fine on a
>>> standard
>>> PC that would normally run windows.  The real difference between Linux
>>> and Unix is that Unix is a trademarked name and you have to pay and pass
>>> a certification to use the name.  In all other respects Linux is Unix.

Well, no.  There's a completely different attitude to kernel design.  Linux 
came from Minix, not Unix.
> 
> Funny though, if someone paid and it passed the certification, then it
> could use the UNIX name (at least in that implementation).
> 
> The GNU acronym was made for the closed source days of the actual OS
> named UNIX. Today UNIX is just a trademarked name, and with OpenSolaris
> much of SysV put out in the open anyway (or so I have heard it said).

There were never "closed source days" of Unix - the source has always been 
available (which is why we have the BSDs), only the name (and the specific 
variant of Unix) were held as proprietary.
-- 
derek