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Unix was never a single OS, it was mostly about being POSIX compatible. In the "Unix war" everyone wanted to call themselves Unix but couldn't because of AT&T t

Unix was never a single OS, it was mostly about being POSIX compatible. In the "Unix war" everyone wanted to call themselves Unix but couldn't because of AT&T trademark so they chose different names. - AIX is Unix from IBM - A/UX is Unix from Apple. - They’re both AT&T System V with gratuitous changes. - Then there’s HP-UX which is HP’s version of System V with gratuitous changes. - DEC calls its system ULTRIX. - DGUX is Data General’s. - And don’t forget Xenix—that’s from SCO. So if we want to talk about the most popular POSIX compatible systems today that are free we're left with the different kinds of BSDs and Linux OS. I also mentioned MacOS in the article, in relation to CoreAudio, but decided to leave it out as its design can't be inspected and compared properly. And also it's not a very popular OS amongst my readership and the world in general.

95014_refugee 6y ago
coughiOScough There's also the part where writing about it is not super interesting, because it mostly just works like it should.
froh 6y ago
And sgi had irix, sco, let's not talk about sco, and even windows nt and os/2 claimed a posix layer, and I'm old enough to have used a couple of them, always "configure; make; make install"-ing GNU in top to get true interoperability, lol And the binary compatibility of GNU/Linux, the interchangeability of suse, debian/ubuntu, red hat, keeps the promise that posix gave. Which leads to the tangential point: a new generation which is growing up with "unix? That's Linux, right? Oh, and free bsd..." Great, great article, btw
- venamresm__ 6y ago
  > "unix? That's Linux, right? Oh, and free bsd..." Arguably, this is sort of true today, adding MacOS to the mix. With Oracle Solaris discontinued, and Oracle Linux being where the work is at, plus a bit of IBM AIX and HP-UX used in some companies server but less common. That's mostly where the POSIX/Unix-like landscape is at today.

95014_refugee 6y ago

coughiOScough There's also the part where writing about it is not super interesting, because it mostly just works like it should.

froh 6y ago

And sgi had irix, sco, let's not talk about sco, and even windows nt and os/2 claimed a posix layer, and I'm old enough to have used a couple of them, always "configure; make; make install"-ing GNU in top to get true interoperability, lol And the binary compatibility of GNU/Linux, the interchangeability of suse, debian/ubuntu, red hat, keeps the promise that posix gave. Which leads to the tangential point: a new generation which is growing up with "unix? That's Linux, right? Oh, and free bsd..." Great, great article, btw

venamresm__ 6y ago
> "unix? That's Linux, right? Oh, and free bsd..." Arguably, this is sort of true today, adding MacOS to the mix. With Oracle Solaris discontinued, and Oracle Linux being where the work is at, plus a bit of IBM AIX and HP-UX used in some companies server but less common. That's mostly where the POSIX/Unix-like landscape is at today.