[BBLISA] Desktop policies and UNIX-ish operating systems

[Adam Moskowitz]

Ned Harvey and a lot of other people have been writing a lot about what
to call non-Windows desktop systems, and what it means to call something
a "Unix" system."

First, I respectfully suggest this is a waste of time: There is only one
"formal" or "legal" definition of a "Unix" system, that is, operating
systems that have obtained the necessary licenses from whoever holds the
trademark these days. Everything else is casual at best, and thus some-
what squishy.

Second, "*nix" or "Unix and Unix-like" is probably good enough for the
vast majority of cases. If necessary, spell out what's included (e.g.,
"including Solaris, Linux, OS X, HP-UX, AIX, and others").

Finally, and this is directed particularly at Ned . . .

> Every unix-like system I've used in the last 10 years . . .

Unix (or Unix-like systems, if you insist) has changed over the years.
Some variations share a lot of similarities, others share little at all.
What's happened in the past 10 years, and indeed which variant O/Sen
you've used in that time, does *NOT* define Unix. If there is any
definition at all, I think it's the IEEE/Open Group "standard," a/k/a
IEEE 1003.x, a/k/a "POSIX." Hoewver, even that doesn't include the long
and rich history that makes up Unix.

Ten years ago, I could have argued that Linux wasn't Unix because it had
a lot of things that weren't present in the variants of Unix that had
been around for the 10 years before that. Earlier, one might have argued
that BSD2.x and 4.x weren't Unix because they had this funky thing known
as "networking," and by gum, the 6th and 7th Editions didn't have no
steekin' networking!

At one point you said something about X Windows. Well, X is a relative
newcomer to the GUI game; before it (and concurrent with it, for many
years), there were things like OpenWindows, NeWS, and a few others whose
names I have forgotten. By the way, X Windows is not part of the POSIX
spec. :-) And "serialized binary XML" (or whatever it is)? AIX -- a
licensed Unix product, if I recall correctly -- had something far more
convoluted back when Apple was still selling Macs that looked like Erwin
(from UserFriendly). Oh, and that POSIX thing? It mostly ignores how the
system stores and managed configuration info.

So, I respectfully suggest you (Ned) come down off your high horse and
accept that there is no clear definition of Unix, accept that you're
ignoring a lot of history, and accept that there is no "right" answer
because there are simply too many ways to ask the question. Worse, if
you ask all the questions, you wind up not with an answer but something
that resembles Bruce Hamilton's "Rosetta Stone for Unix."

AdamM
(whose first Unix was v7)