What's in a name? (was Re: wanted: UNIX or clone)

[Ed Gould]

>>First off, nobody I know in this market uses the word "Unix". Everyone
>>selling the product uses the all-caps version, "UNIX".

>The key distinction is that UNIX is an adjective, while Unix is a
>noun.

This is pure bunk.  AT&T owns a registered trademark "unix."  If
they want to keep it, they are required to defend the use of their
trademark - in particular to avoid it becoming a generic name for
the product.  (An example of a former trademark that has become
generic is "thermos."  The name of the company that owned the
trademark escapes me, but Alladin is their chief competitor.
Alladin now sells things called "thermos bottles.")  Among the ways
that AT&T does this are the following two.  First, they require
their licensees to use the word as an adjective.  Second, they
require it to be made typographically distinct.  This secone
requirement is the reason it's often written in all caps.  In ASCII,
how else does one make something typographically distinct?

In practice, many people - including me - use "unix" as a noun.
There's little that AT&T can do about this, as they don't have any
particular influence over the public at large.  However, they can -
and do - keep their licensees in line.  (An example:  At one time,
mt Xinu used the slogan "We know Unix backwards and forwards."
AT&T sent them a letter, pointing out that this use of "Unix" as
a noun violated their license on the trademark.  Before eventually
dropping that slogan, it was changed to the much less satisfying
"We know the Unix trade mark backwards and forwards," simply for the
purpose of complying with AT&T's restrictions.)

The way the word is written, be it unix, Unix or UNIX, has absolutely
nothing to do with its part of speech.

Until very recently (recent versions of System V) *nobody* but AT&T
was allowed to formally call their product "unix."  Hence all the
various names (Xenix, Ultrix, Dynix, HP/UX, AIX, SunOS, UniPlus+,
...).  AT&T now licenses the use of the trademark as well as the
code.

I wonder where bizarre ideas like "Unix" is different from "UNIX"
come from.  Have the people who foster them ever talked to a lawyer
about trademarks or read an AT&T license agreement?

-- 
Ed Gould			No longer formally affiliated with,
ed at mtxinu.COM			and certainly not speaking for, mt Xinu.

"I'll fight them as a woman, not a lady.  I'll fight them as an engineer."