Talk:Unix

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[edit] What's In a Name?

With no reference to the section immediately below I'd like to point out that the article's bit about the evolution of the name 'Unix' is a bit hazy at best. Kernighan did in fact find the name as a joke - on Multics. The decision to rewrite Unix in C was prefixed by an interest in first creating C. This part did NOT take three years.

Kernighan has himself told the story of how they all watched ken and dmr at their 'grand opening': ken logged in to the console, everything was fine; then dmr tried to get into a terminal and the system just stood still. BWK broke the silence with his now famous quip. That 'Unics' has been backronymed here is I think a bit silly. That ken immediately after this 'fiasco' decided he and dmr needed a new language is also part of the official version. And after dmr had C they set about with rewriting the kernel.

And I've not read this account anywhere. It was told to me by BWK himself, face to face. If someone wants my identity - fine; but BWK is an amenable chap and I'm sure someone who wrote to him and asked him would receive a cordial and informative reply.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.92.203.237 (talk • contribs).

So write him. ¦ Reisio 02:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


I too think that the etymology of 'Unix' is doubtful, and at least could be more complete, but I am not sure exactly how the article might be improved.

Back in 2002 I investigated a little and asked some of the people involved, as I had understood that there was the idea that Unix was a pun on 'castrated Multics'. Below are two responses on the subject:


From: "Peter G. Neumann"
Subject: Re: Origin of the name Unix
There is some confusion.
I indeed referred to an early version of the system as a "one-user castrated Multics" (UNICS). Ken's very first code did not support multiple users, although that changed rapidly.
As I recall, Peter Salus's book A Quarter-Century of Unix gives me credit for the name. But I think perhaps Brian Kernighan seems to deserve the credit for the system name (Unix) in which case I only gave it an interpretation. You might ask Brian what his recollection is.
Peter

So I did:

From: "Brian Kernighan" Date: Thu Feb 07, 2002 06:33:20 pm Europe/London
To: hg@ecs.soton.ac.uk
Subject: re: Origin of the name Unix

my memory (of the same vintage as peter's, of course, and perhaps even more suspect) is that i coined the name "unics" but as a vaguely latin pun: multics was many (multi) of everything, while unics was at most one (uni-) of anything. that's not a bad characterization for the time. i do not know who improved the spelling. i could readily believe that peter supplied the castrated multics interpretation -- he has more of a way with words than i do.
good luck with the scholarship, though it will probably be hard to get further on this specific aspect.
brian k

So I am not sure where that leaves us - the people who were involved are not sure, but it is certainly unlikely that the acronym in the article is correct.

I would at least suggest deleting ", short for Uniplexed Information and Computing System, and could - eventually - support two simultaneous users", unless someone can show authority?

--Hugh.glaser 14:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for change of page title to UNIX

In common with some others, I feel this should be referred to as UNIX, and not Unix. Arguments for this are:

1) It was originally called UNIX by the developers (my comment on the main page about Kerningham and Ritchie calling it UNIX in their C programming book has been removed, despite this clearly indicating it was called that originally. Someone has changed that to indicate upper case was a convention at the time, I accept is true. Either way, it was called UNIX when developed.

2) The operating system is trademarked at UNIX and not Unix. See the web site of the owners of the trademark.

http://www.unix.org/

See for example the trademark page.

http://www.unix.org/trademark.html

To quote from there:

The correct attribution is:

"UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group"

Given it was originally called UNIX and the current trademark owners refer to it as UNIX, any references to Unix or unix, which have occured in other publications should be treated as incorrect usage, and not as any authorative standard.

Although I'm not suggesting the following is in itself a good argument for the use of UNIX rather than Unix, a look at the manual pages (man pages) on a modern UNIX system (Sun's Solaris), clearly shows UNIX in the title of all the pages, except one, for 'brltty' which is a braille display driver - hardly very authoritave, since braile drivers are neither part of the UNIX specification nor developed by the original developers. In other words, that one is in error - all the sytem pages, produced by Sun, use UNIX and not Unix or unix.

Here are the UNIX related man pages on a modern UNIX system

teal /export/home/drkirkby % man -k unix
authunix_create rpc_soc (3nsl)  - obsolete library routines for RPC
authunix_create_default         rpc_soc (3nsl)  - obsolete library routines for RPC
crypt_unix      crypt_unix (5)  - traditional UNIX crypt algorithm
cu              cu (1c)         - call another UNIX system
dos2unix        dos2unix (1)    - convert text file from DOS format to ISO format
kernel          kernel (1m)     - UNIX system executable file containing basic operating system services
pam_unix_account                pam_unix_account (5)    - PAM account management module for UNIX
pam_unix_auth   pam_unix_auth (5)   - PAM authentication module for UNIX
pam_unix_cred   pam_unix_cred (5)   - PAM user credential authentication module for UNIX
pam_unix_session                pam_unix_session (5)    - session management PAM module for UNIX
un              un.h (3head)    - definitions for UNIX-domain sockets
un.h            un.h (3head)    - definitions for UNIX-domain sockets
unix2dos        unix2dos (1)    - convert text file from ISO format to DOS format
uucp            uucp (1c)       - UNIX-to-UNIX system copy
uuglist         uuglist (1c)    - print the list of service grades that are available on this UNIX system
uulog           uucp (1c)       - UNIX-to-UNIX system copy
uuname          uucp (1c)       - UNIX-to-UNIX system copy
uupick          uuto (1c)       - public UNIX-to-UNIX system file copy
uuto            uuto (1c)       - public UNIX-to-UNIX system file copy
uux             uux (1c)        - UNIX-to-UNIX system command execution
xdr_authunix_parms              rpc_soc (3nsl)  - obsolete library routines for RPC
brltty          brltty (1)      - refreshable braille display driver for Linux/Unix

I've not edited the above list in any way, so some are not too relavant. Neither have I removed the single page on the braile display driver which does use Unix.

Overall, despite the fact UNIX, Unix and unix can all be found in publications, the fact remains it was originally called UNIX and the current trademark owner calls it UNIX.

PS, I guess I should have signed, this, so will do now Drkirkby 21:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

  1. Nope, you're wrong.
  2. Sure, but we don't name things based on trademarks; even if we did, "Unix" still would've existed before its trademark (and even longer before its all-caps trademark).
¦ Reisio 02:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, given the first publications outside of Bell used UNIX, and its currently offically that, I find the attitude a little odd. I guess its like religion - you are most unlikly to convince anyone they are wrong and you are right!! I don't know if there are legal implications of not following a trademark, but that is for the Open Group to take up. It's good to see the Japanese, Russian and French Wikipedias use UNIX and not Unix. Perhaps those that feel it should be Unix rather than UNIX should learn Japanese, Russian and French and try to get those pages changed!! Drkirkby 12:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree -- Unix jaick 03:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I assume you agree not to change it, given your user name, although that is not 100% clear. Drkirkby 12:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree - this is a history piece, not an article about a product. 'Unix' is prevalent today. The article may point out this dichotomy of course.
Citing the case in a book published four years after the year Ritchie's been quoted as saying it was accidentally capitalized doesn't mean much, IMO. ¦ Reisio 21:53, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. This article doesn't deal exclusively with systems which have a right to use the UNIX trademark. Fix that first. Chris Cunningham 11:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
True, although even those pages that deal exclusively with UNIX certified systems are not consistant. I just checked the Solaris Operating System page, which is certified to use the trademark UNIX. The Wikipedia page says: It is certified as a version of Unix. It does seem wrong to me to use Unix and certified in the same sentence. (BTW Chris, did you work at MOC in Essex? If so, we have probably met.) Dr. David R. Kirkby Ph.D Drkirkby 12:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I didn't, but I do work for Sun :) I still think the uppercase version has rather slipped out of the vernacular by now, and the Wikipedia style guidelines indicate that the most common name be chosen for articles. It's not like it isn't mentioned or anything. Chris Cunningham 19:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose. The article explains the distinction. The reason you see "UNIX" in the published documentation was that the corporate lawyers insisted on it for brand-name protection, to prevent the trademark from becoming a generic term. In fact many if not most of the original developers and users spelled it "Unix" in informal communications. (The Solaris reference should use "UNIX" since there is no certification for "a version of Unix".) — DAGwyn 05:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree. "Overall, despite the fact UNIX, Unix and unix can all be found in publications, the fact remains it was originally called UNIX and the current trademark owner calls it UNIX." Indeed. Sshadow 07:40, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
It was originally "Unics", then most likely "Unix"; this article is about an operating system originally popularized as "Unix", not the trademark "UNIX". ¦ Reisio 21:53, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly insist. The fact is that the name is UNIX, the fact is that not only dinosaurs write it that way ;) My POV is that many people tend to forget that their POV is not the only POV. If I have to write a filename, username or hostname, it would be all-lowercase. But I personally am not writing Dec, Hp, Ibm or Ms-Dos, and for some weird reason am still writing it UNIX. Actually the introduction should also change to something like "UNIX (informaly written by many as 'Unix', or even 'unix') ...". -- Goldie (tell me) 20:44, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
    You're kidding, right? DEC, HP, IBM and MS-DOS are all initialisms. Chris Cunningham 21:05, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
    acronyms.
    IBM and HP are not acronyms. Jeez. Chris Cunningham 09:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    They certainly originated as acronyms, for International Business Machines and Hewlett-Packard. DAGwyn 20:13, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    As the acronym and initialism page says, it's "a contentious point" whether an initialism that's not pronounced as a word (e.g., "IBM" pronounced as "eye bee em" as opposed to "ib 'em") is an acronym or not. I think this subdiscussion is an example of that contention. Guy Harris 20:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    Actually, seeing as DAGwyn actually corrected me for using "initialisms", I'm not really sure what it was. Chris Cunningham 09:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
    Wrong! No, I am not kidding, joking or whatsoever. Thank you for asking anyway. You're teasing, right?
    For those who have not understood what I have written, I shall repeat: My POV is that many people tend to forget that their POV is not the only POV. If one desires so, (s)he can read Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Anglo-American_focus - people outside U.S.A. do not bother what is behind the scenes, and tend to take some things as they are. A native English speaker might instantly recognize what is acronum and what is not. However I doubt that every native speaker will do so at first glance and am rather certain that almost all non-native speaker will not. After some time have passed the initially used form is carved in stone (or engraved on the one's forehead) and regardless whether it is right or wrong, the person uses that form. -- Goldie (tell me) 07:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    Errr, except this hasn't actually happened in Unix's case. The title-case form is at least as common as the upper-case in the vernacular. You haven't yet bothered to explain why the article should be upper-case rather than simply insisting on it. Chris Cunningham 09:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    And what exactly is that unknown "that" which haven't happened? Is at least as common where? Have ever bothered to read what is going on beyond the East Coast and/or West Coast (of U.S.A.).
    In my part of the world beginners are learning from official (name them formal) materials. Go to Google or Yahoo and search "site:ibm.com unix" or "site:hp.com unix", you might be surprised to see the complete absense of any other form than all-caps. And I've tried to explain that after people get accustomed to that writing they tend to stick to it.
    If you enjoy it, interpret it that way - it is your word ("I know it my way") against mine ("I know it my way"). Are you trying to suggest that I've been stupid and illiterate last decade or two, or what? -- Goldie (tell me) 16:14, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The article for PINE uses "Pine", the article for EMACS uses Emacs. Historically, these were in uppercase, too. --69.173.175.94 17:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no, "too". :p Again, there are actual sourced claims at /Archive 1#UNICS_vs_UNIX. ¦ Reisio 21:53, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree: Since this article is focused primarily on UNIX rather than Unix-like, I agree it should be retitled UNIX. -- Steven Fisher 22:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The lawyers called it UNIX, the developers and users called it Unix, except when publishing in a context controlled by the lawyers.--Per Abrahamsen 09:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unix electronics

I took out the link. Now will you quit deleting section. There is already an article on it. Unix electronics There should be a disambig at the top of the Unix article. Someone should make an article and a disambig notice. Deleting discussion sections is very rude. --Gbleem 03:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Deleting the Unix Electronics article is also very rude. --Gbleem 03:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Please read WP:CORP out guidelines on what makes a company notable enough to warrant a separate article on Wikipedia. It is not rude to apply the rules that the community has agreed on. We do not tolerate spamming here. Thanks, Gwernol 03:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
You are right it's not that big of a company. I only put the link on to show it was a real company. I was surprised when I arrived in Korean and saw Unix on hair driers and such. I'm surprised there hasn't been a lawsuit. I didn't get to read the article but I remember it was very short. --Gbleem 04:04, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
It cracks me up everytime I see the commercial that says, "Unix is magic." --Gbleem 15:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Unix was unique in its time"

Should the line be something like it was the first to have online documentation? Unix isn't dead is it? --Gbleem 01:32, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it should be a little more specific, but I'm not knowledgable enough on this subject to comfortably fix it myself. --Merovingian ※ Talk 01:36, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] microkernel

"The microkernel tried to reverse the growing size of kernels and return to a system in which most tasks would be completed by smaller utilities." Does this line go with the rest of the paragraph? It reads like the microkernel was the method for using mice and it didn't work maybe? --Gbleem 01:36, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

The whole "Overview" needs revamping. I think it was trying to say that Unix has a microkernel architecture, but that's not right, at least not according to current usage of that term. I think the bit about mouse handling was trying to say that polling was awkward (note that many of us added some form of support for polling, now standard in the form of select()). That whole paragraph should be revisited taking into account experience with Plan 9 from Bell Labs. — DAGwyn 07:51, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trademark

Right, the article's pretty inconsistent about Unix and UNIX already, but if we're going to use UNIX anywhere it should be accompanied by the trademark. Can we get some solid ground rules for when and where the capitalisation (and trademark) should be used? Should pages which currently use the capitalisation be moved to include the trademark in the title? (is that even possible?) Chris Cunningham 12:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Unless explicitly otherwise formatted, it is "Unix"
  • Names of specific things (like those of books [The UNIX Programmer's Manual], websites [The UNIX Forums], formal names [UNIX System III], etc.) retain their original formatting.
  • UNIX® and UNIX™ only if you're like being wicked explicit and referring specifically to the trademark alone
    • "UNIX" for casual reference to the trademark
¦ Reisio 04:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

So the system itself shouldn't ever have the trademark next to it? Is that MoS policy? It seems a bit odd to bother with a trademark symbol at all if it's never going to be attached to the thing it labels... Chris Cunningham 10:14, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Checkout http://www.unix.org/ & Trademark#Terminology_and_symbols. ¦ Reisio 21:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Cheers. Chris Cunningham 01:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Screen images

The green-on-black screen images are totally useless in my browser (Firefox on Solaris). Can they be redone, perhaps by converted to black-on-white via Photoshop? — DAGwyn 00:35, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Partial list of systems licensed to use UNIX brand is unsourced

The list of systems licensed to use the UNIX brand appears to be unsourced, and rather dated as well (e.g. A/UX has been effectively dead for over a decade). The Open Group website contains a register of licensees, if anyone has time to update the article. However, that may not be the end of the story, if derived systems are allowed to use the name as well. For example, Microsoft licensed the UNIX SVR5 source code from the SCO Group, for the UNIX subsystem offered in some versions of Windows, and subsequently started using the 'UNIX' name for the resulting subsystem, in lieu of the former 'Interix' name. Does that mean Microsoft's UNIX subsystem for Windows is a properly licensed UNIX? I don't know, but apparently an earlier version Interix had been officially certified as UNIX (http://www.opengroup.org/press/15_oct98.htm), so I suppose that may still be valid. Shalineth 21:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BSD TCP/IP stack claims

I don't see the source for the claim that most TCP/IP stacks today are descendants of the BSD TCP/IP stack. I've read that Microsoft licensed a BSD-derived stack for Windows NT 3.1 (and also Windows 95, I believe) from a company called 'Spider', but Microsoft claim to have put a 'completely rewritten' TCP/IP stack into Windows NT 3.5 (1994, I think): http://www.microsoft.com/technet/network/deploy/depovg/tcpip2k.mspx. There have also been various claims that Microsoft wrote yet another TCP/IP stack for Vista.

On the whole, any claim about 'most systems' is going to effectively mean whatever Microsoft are using, given the large market share of Microsoft Windows. As such, I'm inclined to remove this claim unless there's some supporting evidence from a reliable source (e.g. not a forum posting by a random individual). The network interfaces defined by BSD (BSD sockets) have unquestionably become the standard on most systems, but that does not imply the implementations are descendants of the BSD code itself. The limited evidence I've found seems to indicate, at least in the case of Microsoft Windows, the latter does not apply. Shalineth 22:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The claim was correct as of a few years ago; I don't know how accurate it is today. The number of TCP/IP stacks means the number of implementations (platforms), not the number of fielded units. Thus, Windows just counts as one, not as a zillion. -- DAGwyn 22:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I see what you mean, but the exact wording is, "almost all TCP/IP network code in use today", which I think can be read as referring to systems in use (and maybe also as the number of implementations). It could be clarified relatively easily, so maybe I'll do that, but it would still be ideal to have a solid source for the claim.
I've also seen the "Windows uses a BSD TCP/IP stack" claim for a long time in forums and such, but the only documented sources I've ever seen for the NT line have referred to Windows NT 3.1 specifically (which has a totally different TCP/IP stack to NT 3.5 and later). This has sometimes been confused because later version of Windows continued to include BSD TCP/IP tools such as ftp and telnet (which contained BSD copyright notices in the binaries, whereas the driver modules that implemented the TCP/IP stack did not). Shalineth 14:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I haven't examined the Windows implementation, so the follwoing is just speculation, but it always seemed to me that in the early days Microsoft was hoping IP-based networking was a passing fancy, and when they were forced by market pressure into supporting it, the fastest way to do so was by porting the BSD TCP/IP stack. It wouldn't be surprising if they eventually replaced it by a home-grown implementation. — DAGwyn 05:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No more online manuals which waste Wiki resources

I found a page on "Stat-Unix" while doing a search for unix programming topics (3/4/07) I feel strongly that the resources of Wikipedia should not be wasted on recreating or mirroring another "d_mned" unix manual on the web. There are ample resources for programming and operating systems related concerns on the web and so while the "history of" would be alright for Wiki. It is wholly inappropriate as a mirror or summary of so much material already available on the web (last look +1 million hits and counting)... Wiki editors you need to put limits which prevent wiki from becoming a "web to itself". Like a good poem...Wiki will benefit from the constraints of common sense. 71.156.174.2 21:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with the intent of that, perhaps there was some specific reason a "Stat (Unix)" article was created, such as to elaborate on what "stat" meant in some context where the elaboration would have been distracting. -- DAGwyn 22:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Careless use of the word "modern"

I'd suggest that in general, and for computer science articles in particular, the word "modern" be avoided where possible. Is Solaris 10 "modern" and for how long will that be?

In this case, I'd suggest that a year (for example) be used.

Information such as this is always in flux, but there's no need for planned obsolescence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.18.106.66 (talk) 22:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

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