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From: Mike Greaves <mgreaves@pathcom.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.misc
Subject: Re: question
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 20:24:56 -0500
Organization: Pathway Communications
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.misc:2916
Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
>
> Strrictly speaking, Unix is a trademark of X/OPEN for operating system
Not many people speak this strictly (unless there are laywers around :-)
BTW, I like the double-r in strrictly. Nice touch.
> >Linux is a free version of unix based on System V. Other free unices include
>
> No, it is not. Linux is not "a version of Unix", nor is it "based on System
> V". If it were, it couldn't be given away for free.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This depends on what he means by "based on". If he means "based on" as
in "modeled after", then of course it could be given away for free.
Only if he means "based on" as in "incorporating original source code
from" would a license be required. It's my understanding that Linux is
closer to BSD than System V, but we can say it's "loosely based" on
both, though
containing no source derived from either (maybe a little from BSD-lite -
not sure).
> Now, I think of the present BSD operating systems as "free versions of BSD
> Unix", but strictly speaking they aren't. They're based on 4.4BSD-Lite, which
Funny, they do call this newgroup comp.UNIX.bsd.misc :-)
^^^^
> people who write advertisements like that, but if SCO and X/OPEN continue to
> allow their trademark to be diluted in this manner, perhaps they'll lose it,
I think, as far as _common_usage_ goes, the trademark is _toast_.
Absolutely _meaningless_. A company who charges for their product had
better make sure they can legally employ the Unix _trademark_, but the
rest of humanity can and does pretty much abuse it at will. Maybe Red
Hat can't say that Linux is Unix, but you and I can, if we wanted to.
It may not be quite accurate, but it certainly is convenient :-)
Well, I'm off to stir up some more trouble!
Mike Greaves
mgreaves@pathcom.com