The future of Unix
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne Nov 29, 2008 5:22 PM EDT |
belong to it's stepchild "his name is Linux". |
| herzeleid Nov 29, 2008 8:03 PM EDT |
Not really a stepchild - more like a bastard son. I don't mean that in a bad way, I just think it better describes the place of linux in the unix family tree. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 29, 2008 8:13 PM EDT |
Not a bastard son. Just some unrelated person who looks surprisingly familiar. |
| herzeleid Nov 29, 2008 8:19 PM EDT |
> Not a bastard son. Just some unrelated person who looks surprisingly familiar. There's a definite line of descent from Bell Labs. Linus Torvalds referred heavily to "The Design of the Unix Operating System" by Maurice J Bach when he was working on the first, primitive versions of linux. So the big traditional unix flavors scoff and ask "who the heck is this kid?" but he's definitely got the same dna. It's just that he's not an "officially recognized" relative. Edit: cleaned up language a bit |
| tracyanne Nov 30, 2008 1:30 AM EDT |
Excuse me, but bastard son, is not dirty language, it is not swearing it is not cussing, or any other euphemism for using socially unacceptable language. A bastard (when referring to a person) is officially a person who was born to a women who was not married to the man that sired the the child, but who was officially and legally recognised as that man's son. And just to clarify, a person who illegitimate is a person who may or may not have been born to the woman who is married to the man who sired the child, but has not been officially and legally recognised as that man's child. In modern usage, the term bastard has become confused with illegitimate, meaning the parent were not married, as indeed, any child born to a married couple is considered legitimate, by definition. So to call Linux the bastard son of Unix, while not entirely complimenatary, is most definitely not the use of inappropriate language, no matter what the age of the person reading this, unless we are going to become completely twee, and insist on euphemisms for every english language phase, and word, that is also used in what are considered an inappropriate manner. |
| herzeleid Nov 30, 2008 1:52 AM EDT |
@ta - thanks for the extra insights - I didn't think bastard was an inappropriate term, but I used some other expressions in a sentence that I reworked for a "G" rating. |
| tracyanne Nov 30, 2008 2:11 AM EDT |
In Australian English, the term political bastardry refers to someone acting within a political context who has done things that, while not necessarily illegal, are considered unethical. I can assure that such terms are used quite freely in social contexts, and are definitely not considered the use of inappropriate language. |
| Scott_Ruecker Nov 30, 2008 2:58 AM EDT |
For my part I had/have no issue with your usage of it tracyanne, I knew what you meant and thought it an apt description. There is a difference between calling someone a bastard and being the bastard child of someone.. ;-) |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 30, 2008 9:00 AM EDT |
I've greatly enjoyed reading Peter Salus' "The Daemon, The Gnu and the Penguin" where he goes into how "UNIX" was recreated from scratch more than half a dozen times. http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005101323... One of those times was Linux. Personally, I prefer the "feel" of Linux over any other *NIX that I've tried. It feels less stagnant, more flexible, and it sure runs on some gnarly hardware! |
| hkwint Nov 30, 2008 1:31 PM EDT |
Well, UNIX was a bastard son recreated from scratch almost as a hobby project (full of bugs) also, which probably means it was inevitable someone else would do the same as the UNIX creators themselves did. And because that happened successfully twice now, it might happen a third time. |
| herzeleid Nov 30, 2008 7:52 PM EDT |
@hwkint - Oh noes! You think someone really might create an "unauthorized clone of linux"? @bob_robertson - thanks for the reminder, I'm going to put that on my amazon wishlist, dead tree version. |
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