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by josteink 4031 days ago
Being a licenced Unix is a technicality, mostly involving willingness to pay for a badge.

Being a properly free and unrestricted environment to work with and work in is not. That's something concrete, real and has actual value.
2 comments
teacup50 4031 days ago
> Being a licenced Unix is a technicality, mostly involving willingness to pay for a badge.

It's not, actually. You also have to do a lot of work to conform to the specs.

Linux doesn't. BSDs come very close. Mac OS X is conformant.

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stephenr 4031 days ago
> Being a properly free and unrestricted environment to work with and work in is not

So why didn't you say that? You said "I was referring to Linux as a proper, unrestricted Unix-environment"

To be pedantic, Linux is the kernel. The environment, is the GNU userland, which is specifically NOT UNIX.

Yes I know it's Unix-like. But when you start your complaint with "it's not proper" try to at least know what you want it to be and what you don't want.

OS X is a "proper UNIX" operating system.

GNU/Linux distributions are free unix-like operating systems.

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