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If UNIX Were a Religion
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Charles Stross has written a very clever article where he describes the religious metaphor he uses with non-technical folks to explain the relationship between Mac OS X and UNIX. There is one true religion in operating systems says Stross and it is UNIX although there's also an earlier, older, more arcane religion with far fewer followers, MULTICS, from which UNIX sprang as a stripped-down rules-deficient heresy. If MULTICS is Judaism then UNIX is Christianity. By the mid-1970s there were two main sects: AT&T UNIX, which we may liken unto the Roman Catholic Church, and BSD UNIX, which we may approximate to the Orthodox Churches. In an attempt to control the schisms, the faithful defined a common interoperating subset of the one true religion that all could agree on—the Nicene Creed of UNIX which is probably POSIX. Stross says that today the biggest church in the whole of UNIX is Mac OS X, which rests on the bedrock of Orthodox BSD but "has added an incredible, towering superstructure of fiercely guarded APIs and proprietary user interface stuff that renders it all but unrecognizable to followers of the Catholic AT&T path." But lo, in the late 1980s, UNIX succumbed to the sins of venality, demanding too much money from the faithful and so, in 1991 Linus Torvalds nailed his famous source code release to the cathedral door and kicked off the Reformation. 'The Linux wars were brutal and unforgiving and Linux itself splintered into a myriad of fractious Protestant churches, from the Red Hat wearing Lutherans to the Ubuntu Baptists.' More recently, a deviant faith has sprung from Linux. 'Android is the Church of Latter Day Saints of UNIX: hard-working, sober, evangelizing the public, and growing at a ferocious rate. There are some strange fundamentalist Mormon Android churches living in walled communities under the banners of Samsung and Amazon, but for the most part the prosperous worship at the Church of Google.' Stross notes that as with all religion, those sects with most in common are the ones who hold the most vicious grudges against one another. 'Is that clear?'"
If it was a religion? if???
I didn't realise this was up for a debate about this.
Now I'm going to fetch my copy of the old testament (ANSI version) and read a few verses.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
A cult that demands its adherents donate increasingly large amounts of money to the "church" and employs dubious legal tactics, manipulation of the media and outright intimidation to keep its opponents and wayward members in check? Yep. Sounds like we have a winner!
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Minix.
Beautiful, elegant, reliable and useless.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
> laid with MINIX...
Works better if you say, "Linus knew MINIX."
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
As much stuff as Windows had blown up over.the years I am thinking fundamental Islam.
Silence is a state of mime.
Sorry, I couldn't finish my previous comment. I had a bsod of 0x00000allahuakbar.
Silence is a state of mime.
I'm a Unitarian, but I'm a lapsed Unitarian. So while I respect and learn about all operating systems, I secretly use a Mac and respect it slightly more. And since leaving the forced attendance at the Church of Microsoft I endured as a young businessman, I make snide remarks about it's adherence to the Registry which I believe only serves to corrupt it after a year.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software - regardless of how insignificant," said the master.
"Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
"It is," came the reply.
"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
"It is even in a video game," said the master.
"And is the Tao also in Windows 8.1?"
The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
95% of the Japanese are Christians.
Japan, Philippines ... same same.