3 ms·

But I think it’s relevant to say that before writing Unix he was working on Multics for a long time already. Unix was a “simplified” version of it, if I remembe

by balder1991 2y ago

But I think it’s relevant to say that before writing Unix he was working on Multics for a long time already. Unix was a “simplified” version of it, if I remember well. So it didn’t “spring out of thin air.”

trollerator23 2y ago
Absolutely.
fuzztester 2y ago
>So it didn’t “spring out of thin air.” Right. Almost nothing does. You see, it's https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
eichin 2y ago
Mmm, even early versions ended up being more the "anti-multics" than actually simplified-from, despite the name pun...
DiggyJohnson 2y ago
Where did the quoted text come from? Something might have gotten edited.
teleforce 2y ago
Unix was a kind of play word for Unique as an anti-thesis for Multics that latter was originally designed for modern multi-user and multi-process OS. Ironically as any real-world OS Unix eventually becomes multi-user system similar to Multics but the name stucked. Granted Unix has a very simple (as in simple as possible but no simpler) multi-user permission and security system that work reliably for many decades until now. Of all the organizations NSA actually even come up with a better replacement for the modern Unix permission and security model with SELinux, but most users just ignored and disabled SELinux although it's installed by default by many major Linux distros [1]. [1] SELinux is unmanageable; just turn it off if it gets in your way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176138
- JoeAltmaier 2y ago
  I understood it was Unix for 'one mechanism' or 'unified' instead of the broad everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Multix approach. That was the joke I understood. Notthing about single-user.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Not something that you can disable on Android, or on properly managed Linux servers, where devs only get what they should touch on.
- musicale 2y ago
  "We even knew that it had a joke name, Unix, coined by Brian Kernighan, that was a reference to Multics." https://multicians.org/unix.html https://multicians.org/unix.html "Brian Kernighan takes credit for the idea, but adds that 'no one can remember' the origin of the final spelling Unix." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix Also note that Prof. Kernighan has written a historical memoir about Unix: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/ https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/

trollerator23 2y ago

Absolutely.

fuzztester 2y ago

>So it didn’t “spring out of thin air.” Right. Almost nothing does. You see, it's https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

eichin 2y ago

Mmm, even early versions ended up being more the "anti-multics" than actually simplified-from, despite the name pun...

DiggyJohnson 2y ago

Where did the quoted text come from? Something might have gotten edited.

teleforce 2y ago

Unix was a kind of play word for Unique as an anti-thesis for Multics that latter was originally designed for modern multi-user and multi-process OS. Ironically as any real-world OS Unix eventually becomes multi-user system similar to Multics but the name stucked. Granted Unix has a very simple (as in simple as possible but no simpler) multi-user permission and security system that work reliably for many decades until now. Of all the organizations NSA actually even come up with a better replacement for the modern Unix permission and security model with SELinux, but most users just ignored and disabled SELinux although it's installed by default by many major Linux distros [1]. [1] SELinux is unmanageable; just turn it off if it gets in your way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176138

JoeAltmaier 2y ago
I understood it was Unix for 'one mechanism' or 'unified' instead of the broad everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Multix approach. That was the joke I understood. Notthing about single-user.
pjmlp 2y ago
Not something that you can disable on Android, or on properly managed Linux servers, where devs only get what they should touch on.
musicale 2y ago
"We even knew that it had a joke name, Unix, coined by Brian Kernighan, that was a reference to Multics." https://multicians.org/unix.html https://multicians.org/unix.html "Brian Kernighan takes credit for the idea, but adds that 'no one can remember' the origin of the final spelling Unix." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix Also note that Prof. Kernighan has written a historical memoir about Unix: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/ https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/