Is Linux Unix?

Part 1

In the first part of the story about the relationship between Linux and Unix, you will learn about the rich history of Unix, which determines what it is and who it belongs to.

Is Linux Unix?

If you ask this question, then you are on a par with numerous Linux and Unix developers, administrators and users. What is the sentence? The court can not make a final decision. It looks like a simple question, but ask it to 10 people and you will receive 10 different answers. The essence of the problem lies in how each person presents these concepts in different ways. Some people think that these are sets of standards, others that they are communities, and still others are trademarks. Frankly, Linux and Unix are all these things at the same time.

Many try to use the old "duck test" when searching for an answer - "If the object looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then this is most likely the duck." In spite of the fact that the example with a duck is hardly comparable with complex systems, the reasoning is in general somewhere consonant. Linux really resembles Unix in almost every aspect. In fact, the original Linux kernel was modeled after Unix, and even its creator (!) Once linked the kernel with Unix.
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Does this mean that Linux is Unix? Not necessary. If you were cloned, would your clone be you? Many would argue that what defines an object is not only its composition, but also history. In the case of the clone, he would not have your memory, so that he would not really be you.

A brief history of Unix

The development of Unix truly began in the 1960s with a project called Multics, which did not bring much profit and was abandoned by one of the largest companies that made the main contribution to its development. However, work on the project was continued by enthusiasts, which ultimately led to the birth of UNICS (a play of sounds with Multics, later renamed UNIX) in the 1970s.

In 1980, AT & T developed a package of commercial licenses for all UNIX distributions, and consolidating all versions into one: UNIX System V. The University of California, Berkeley continued to develop its own version of Unix called BSD. Many of the most important developments in UNIX originally came from BSD, for example, the inclusion of TCP / IP in the main UNIX version.

During the 80s and 90s, many companies purchased and licensed their own versions of UNIX, including Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, and SCO. At about the same time, development teams and companies made a breakthrough towards the “open” Unix, creating a separate branch of its development. In the early 90s, AT & T sold all of its rights to Novell's UNIX. In 1995, Novell already sold part of its rights to Unix, including the right to further development, to System V and SCO.

All of these purchases, sales, licensing, delichsencing and independent development in the 90s led to numerous lawsuits, disputes, and dramas over the ownership of Unix parts. Linux also appeared in the SCO lawsuit as containing the Unix code that belonged to them. When everything died down, Novell won the case against SCO, and forced SCO to withdraw lawsuits against IBM and Sequent, as well as Linux. They even went to the fact that they said, "We do not believe that there is something from Unix in Linux."

Today, Solaris OS from Sun Microsystems is the largest Unix operating system. BSD continues to evolve and spawned free versions such as FreeBSD. In 2005, Sun published most of the OpenSolaris code, which led to an even greater number of open source versions based on Unix.

Part 2 - Linux Story

In the second part of this series, you will learn about the path of Linux from a modest beginning to fame and fortune!

A brief history of Linux

In 1991, in Helsinki, Finland, Linus Torvalds began work on a project that, he said, was “just for fun”. This project eventually became the Linux kernel. It was never designed for anything special, just a tool that would allow a student to access UNIX servers at a nearby university. He wrote it specifically for the hardware on which he was working at the time, and it did not depend on the operating system. After some time, Linus realized that what he inadvertently created is the very core of the operating system.

Torvalds modeled it on the basis of a UNIX variant called Minix. The Minix code was open, but the changes and further distribution were not allowed, so the Torvalds core was not copyrighted. Although it was modeled after Unix, it was not Unix. After he realized that he had created, he wrote on Usenet:

“Hi everyone, who uses MINIX - I am doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, it won't be a big and professional system, like GNU) for 386 (486) AT models. I have been doing this since April, and now I’m finishing work. I would like to get any feedback on things that you like and dislike in MINIX, since my system somewhat resembles it (the same physical location of the file system (for practical reasons) among the rest). „

Obviously, at that time, Torvalds did not understand how important his core was for the open software movement, which gradually began to spread its influence by that time. The Free Software Foundation, best known for its GNU project, which began development in 1983, looked for the kernel to fulfill its dream of “having enough free software to do without any software that is not free ". Yes, the goal was a full-fledged operating system plus additional open source software and GPL-protected software. In 1992, they discovered Linux, and GNU / Linux began its journey, which brought it exactly to the place where "there is a sufficient amount of free software that you can do without any software that is not free."

In custody ...

Is Linux Unix? You still do not know? Me too, but at least now you have the facts. From this point on, the choice of position is solely your personal decision.
On the one hand, unlike all versions of UNIX, Linux does not contain code from any UNIX development cycle. However, if something looks like a duck ... Well, you know the rest.