[AUUG-Talk]: Proprietary Unixes (Dead?)

[David Lloyd]

Howdy,

Chris Maltby wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Oct 2007 00:37:23 +1000 Chris Maltby <chris at sw.oz.au> wrote:
>>> But don't forget the BSD family - the Unix (and open source) world 
>>> contains more than "just" the Linux based systems in the viable category.
> 
> On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 11:37:29PM +1000, Norberto Meijome wrote:
>> I agree, but i don't see how BSD falls into  the 'propietary unix'
>> (unless you deem *BSD  inheritors of the propietary BSDs of the 80s....)
> 
> The original message in this thread appeared to imply that the only
> remaining viable inheritor of "proprietary" Unix was Linux. That's
> obviously rubbish.

That was my mistake and certainly not deliberate; of course the open 
source BSDs are not proprietary Unixes.

Deciding whether the BSDs are viable would mean:

* defining what one means by viable

   - not necessarily all agreeing to that definition, but at least
     knowing what the definition is

* working out whether one or more of the BSDs fit the definition

I tend to think that it's relatively easy to come up with a sensible 
definition of "viable" that makes the BSDs not viable as it is to make 
them viable

On the other hand, I tend to think a definition of viable that made 
Linux not viable, might sound a little silly or even absurd.

DSL