The Spirit Of Unix vs. The Unix Trademark

BSD Forums writes "This article conveys the message that Linux, BSD, and Darwin continue what Unix started. InfoWorld's Tom Yager says that several readers took him to task for referring to Linux, BSD, and OS X as Unix. He feels that Unix has a rich legacy that deserves to be preserved and accurately conveyed to new generations of computer scientists. It rattles many of us to see that the operating systems that best exemplify Unix traditions today aren't Unix at all."

Comments

Re:Call it Multics

[joto]

The same reason that it seems the term "Hacker" is forever doomed to be considered a person who breaks into a computer despite the protests of true hackers and english language etymologists..

Huh? I've never heard this claim from anyone but Eric Raymond, and wannabe hackers having read too much in that "dictionary" of his. Please tell me of a respectable english language etymologist with the same stubborn view.

It should be quite noticeable by now, that "hacker" has been used of computer criminals for at least 15 years, both in mainstream media, and lot's of other places. To insist that it really means something else, is as stupid as insisting that "mouse" does not mean that thingy you move the pointer around the screen with, but in reality is a small rodent.

But in fact it is really much more stupid. Because the rodent interpretation of "mouse" is much older, and therefore somewhat more "correct", if you insist on age as the only criterium, which is also absurd, considering the amoung of latin and greek words we misuse everyday ("idiot" being one example, it does not mean what you think it does, neither does for example "pedagog").

And furthermore, hack means a lot of other things, all of which are much more common in daily usage, than the computer-related interpretation. If you should insist on only one meaning of "hack", it should probably be to either remove vegetation, or chop at something.

Because the public has accepted calling it "UNIX". As much as we'd like to change names to avoid confusion,

I can't imagine anyone becoming less confused, if you started calling the unix-clone family/tradition of OS'es collectively as something besides unix, such as multics, polyx, donuts, or cheese. But if you really think so, go ahead, and ignore anyone that looks weirdly at you when you talk about hacking some new cheese features.