peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (10/11/89)
In <17118@rpp386.cactus.org> John F Haugh offers the argument that anything that isn't SVID and hasn't passed the SVVS is not UNIX. Well, John, in a legal sense you're right. Legally AT&T can destroy your company if you publish an advertisement claiming that your BSD- based system is UNIX. Or your Xenix-based one. In practical terms, however (and I hope we're practical here) it's more useful to use a wider definition of UNIX. After all, 10 years ago the latest version of UNIX was version 7. It certainly isn't SVID, and will in no way pass the SVVS. In a couple of years the latest version of System V will be so mutated that current SVID systems will no longer qualify. I doubt if anyone (other than AT&T Marketing types) who stops to think about it will have any difficulty dealing with UNIX as being any system that can trace its lineage back to AT&T. Many of us are willing to use that term to describe anything that can provide a programmer interface that's "close enough" to the 7th edition. -- Peter da Silva, *NIX support guy @ Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Biz: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Fun: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' 'U` Quote: Structured Programming is a discipline -- not a straitjacket.