free sco unix

[Matthew Seaman]

On 15/06/2011 21:34, Thomas Hansen wrote:
> one of my mates teacher says that unix is free and your system running
> like UnixWare / SCO UNIX and .... and that unix is free

Some Unix is free (the best sorts), others are most certainly not free
at all.

FreeBSD is pretty much the opposite end of the Unix spectrum to UnixWare
/ SCO -- so, yes there is plenty in common like the flat namespace, the
concept of 'everything is a stream of bytes', many of the standard
applications.  Many things are completely different --
ps(1) and df(1) for example are quite different between pure-bred *BSD
(like FreeBSD) and pedigree SysV (like SCO).

Aside: Linux is not unix (the clue is in the name) -- except by the duck
test.  It walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... but it's a whole
different breed of waterfowl entirely, and has origins independent of
the primordial Unix systems.  Even so, it does provide a pretty complete
emulation of a fairly middle of the road BSD--SysV hybrid.

> Do your BSD kernel run the same unix kernel as unixware

No.  Absolutely not.   Way back in the 1980's there were some common
ancestral systems from which each has inherited bits of code[*], but
development has been quite separate for the last 30 years or so.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

[*] Well, there has always been some cross fertilization, even after the
development tracks split apart.  Lookup the history of the AT&T vs.
Regents of the University of California lawsuit and how that all came to
an end.

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
                                                  Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
JID: matthew at infracaninophile.co.uk               Kent, CT11 9PW

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