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A Unix-like operating system is one that
behaves in a manner similar to the UNIX system, while not necessarily conforming to or
being certified to any version of the Single UNIX
Specification.
The term is now most often used to refer to the Unix-like open source
operating systems.
With the rise of Linux and its strong competitive showing against certified Unix, Unix
certification is becoming less relevant to the marketplace.
The term "Unix-like" and the UNIX trademark
The Open Group, which owns the UNIX trademark and administers the
Single UNIX Specification, considers "UNIX-like" to be a usage problem, and believes that a better alternative term would be the
term "POSIX-conforming system". However, the term "POSIX-conforming" has its own
problems. For example, there are systems which conform to at least the key POSIX standards (e.g., Microsoft Windows) and can claim to be POSIX-conforming, but that are
nevertheless not Unix-like and many applications written to compile and run on Unix will not work on them.
Early Unix-like systems
The first "Unix-like" operating systems were developed because of AT&T's
licensing of Unix, which prevented the sale of Unix to commercial organisations. The Unix-like operating systems that were
available in the 1980s and early 1990s included
Idris, Coherent, UniFlex and Minix (a computer science teaching system).
When AT&T allowed Unix to be sold to commercial organisations in the 1980s, the market for the earliest Unix-like
operating systems dried up. The rise of Linux in the 1990s killed the rest.
Unix-like open source operating systems
The term is most often used as a simple way of referring to the Unix-like open
source operating systems:
External links
See also
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