Im going to get banned for this

Gingernate@programming.dev to Unixporn@lemmy.ml – 438 points –
119

You are viewing a single comment

Its merely off topic, Windows isn't Unix. OSX is, though only loosely.

OSX is, though only loosely.

MacOS is definitely Unix. Same syscalls, same command line, same permissions and virtual filesystem concepts. Pipes, text files, all that jazz. It uses zsh for scripting, PAM for authentication, CUPS for printing, OpenSSH for remote access, Unix sockets and virtual interfaces for networking.

Hell, a good chunk of macOS is straight up FreeBSD.

Unlike most, macOS is also registered and can use the UNIX name.

Lol did no one register for unix 98?

When it was the latest standard there were probably significantly more on 98 then we see today on 03 (or even fewer on later ones). Commercial Unix isn’t as big a draw as it was back then. They have to certify/pay every so often so stuff falls off.

Perfect examples of why OSX is an Unix-like just like GNU/Linux. It's got a shared history with the original Unix, but isn't literally Unix. This community is around Unix-likes, and under the Unix-like banner, I'd gladly welcome ReactOS. WSL isn't in the spirit of it though.

OSX has been on a number of occasions actively hostile towards FLOSS as well (particularly anything GPL), which in the last decades, have become synonymous with Unix-likes, though that's a matter of personal taste. What isn't a matter of taste however, is that OSX uses the XNU kernel, which is an acronym for X is Not Unix. It is not a monolithic Unix style kernel either. I would argue that OSX is only loosely Unix-like, and only mimics Unix functions for compatibility. Should Apple have the inclination, they would happily abandon it for something invented by them given the opportunity.

Not picking a fight with you over semantics, I just loathe Apple as a business and Microsoft gets a lot of flack for their old "Embrace Extend Extinguish" policies when Apple has been exceptionally hostile towards OSS. Apple so often gets a pass when being considered a part of Unix communities yet they absolutely do not embrace the spirit of Unix-likes and FLOSS at all.

Hostile towards OSS makes them more like commercial UNIX imo.

It's a nit to be sure. Microsoft's insistence on PowerShell nowhere and never is beyond mystifying. Apple at least wraps it's XNU in "standard" libs + shells. WSL is a pile of flaming trash, a footnote to an afterthought.

With MacOS, Terminal is x-term'ish, shell is zsh, and ls is ls OOTB. It's easy to see why people get confused.

With Windows, there is no terminal, Powershell is an alien quagmire, and ls is Get-ChildItem. It's easy to see why people get confused :)

Wsl is the bare minimum to make me feel less uncomfortable on windows, even if it's just for file operations and to ssh into a real computer.

Wsl gets close :P but of course that's not what we're looking at here

Linux isn't Unix though. Not even a little. You better be running bsd to claim you are a Unix os.

Linux isn't unix either, at best unix-like :/.Spirit wise its probably offtopic though.

3 more...