When I talk about things involving the history of Unix, I often wind up mentioning V7, also known as Seventh Edition of Research Unix from Bell Labs (for a recent example, in my entry on when Unix got stack size limits). If you’re relatively new to the history of Unix, you might wonder why V7 keeps coming up so often. There are a number of reasons that V7 matters so much both for the history of Unix and for what is what we think of as being ‘Unix’ and the Unix way.
The history of Unix is… Complicated.
I watched a youtube by Benno Rice which included comment on the Unix philosophy, history of Unix, and architectural issues. That’s enough for me and I think he explained it better than this article. The short version is the Unix philosophy (which this article touches on) isn’t really what people think it is, was work in progress from an earlier time, and needs updating.
The article doesn’t describe what the author believes is the original vision and pure version of Unix which is quite an omission given how much of the article pivots around this. I’d like to think we have learned a few things since then too.
Fun fact: Beowulf, Chaucer, and Shakespeare are all English and as far apart as chalk is from cheese.
I’m sure he did. I’ve read Chris blog posts of the years, and he mainly muses on whatever is occupying his mind at the moment rather then doing a deep dive.
It’s UNIX v7.
From the article:
Chris even points out people’s interpretations of UNIX are kind of meaningless.
For all intents and purposes, we live in a post-UNIX world, and it’s all about Linux now regardless about how people feel about it.
Flatland_Spider,
Yes, it’s all about linux now. Not necessarily the best design, but easily the most popular of the FOSS platforms. Sometimes BSDs do things better, but it’s an uphill battle for them as the underdogs.
I like the BSDs too, and I run them quite a bit for my personal stuff.
There is stuff the BSDs could learn from Linux, and stuff Linux could learn from the BSDs. Tightly coupled core tools to create a base is one thing Linux could do, and the BSDs would benefit from a more modular base.
FreeBSD makes for a better base for proprietary OSes, such as the PS4’s and the Nintendo Switch’s, and of course macOS.
Johann Chua,
That has more to do with its license, which allows it to be used this way rather than anything to do with the code. It’s hard to say how the market would change if licenses weren’t involved.
From Dr. Salus’ book, A Quarter Century of UNIX, v7 also brought AT&T “licensing” preventing its use as course material causing many universities to cease teaching specific courses on UNIX.
I guess that matters.
That’s probably why it fractured into BSD UNIX and AT&T UNIX
That justified MINIX to exist.