On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 smac at visi.com wrote: > All that and UNIX was developed buy ATT Labs and Linux was developed by > Linus. I think I'm understanding that UNIX is a trademark that can only be used (after some money exchanges hands) in reference to an operating system that has some particular code inside. UNIX is not defined by what the operating system does. If I am understanding this, the situation is a little odd. It's like "Windows" - that is a Microsoft OS (several, actually). Microsoft could (but won't) sell the rights to others to make Joe's Windows, Bob's Windows, etc. Microsoft would then determine that Joe and Bob were meeting Microsoft criteria for calling their OSs "Windows." If Tom were to make an OS that worked just like Windows but without the bugs, he could not call it Windows because Microsoft hadn't given him the code and the permission to do so, so he'd call it Tomdows and face a massive legal challenge (because he used the 'dows' part of 'Windows'). I used to think that UNIX was defined by specifications of functionality (and some money changing hands) not by the code inside. So Linux is UNIXish but it isn't UNIX. Mike