File talk:Unix history-simple.svg

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See also the Wikipedia discussion page: en:File talk:Unix history-simple.svg.

Mistakes in this diagram

I just uploaded a new version that fixes some mistakes, but there's still a few left:

• 1BSD and 2BSD weren't really operating systems. They were a set of add-on utilities and patches.
• 4.3BSD-Tahoe, 4.3-Reno and 4.4BSD were not free. They required an AT&T license. Net/2 and "lite" were the (not fully functional) free editions of these.
• Xenix V/386 should point to SVR4: i386 hardware support largely came from Xenix.
• "Mixed/shared source" is often wrongly applied. Source licenses were available for many of these systems, if you paid for them (that includes Xenix, which was licensed by Microsoft to various companies). Research Unix V9 and V10 were, to the best of my knowledge, never distributed outside Bell Labs at all, so it should be considered wholly proprietary.

Also, can we try to agree on some criteria for inclusion in this diagram? It seems everyone wants their favorite OpenSolaris derivative on it, which seems unfair to historically important systems such as OSF/1. Qwertyus (talk) 19:12, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Today's version fixes the licenses on 4.3 and 4.4BSD, and adds a link from Xenix V/386 to SVR4. I also changed the colour of Unix 9 & 10. Your other concerns are still valid (e.g. I didn't change Xenix's colour).

Regarding criterias for inclusion, I would agree that this document don't need to include every OpenSolaris or FreeBSD derivative. Beside OSF/1 (aka Tru64), we're also missing 386/BSD (aka BSD/OS) as an important BSD Net/2 derivative and, as pointed out by other commenters, Irix (based on SVR3 and 4.3BSD).

--Xiloynaha (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Regarding inclusion, there are a few more historically significant Unices that I think should be represented somewhere. SGI's IRIX and DEC's Ultrix were extremely popular in their days. Shamino (talk) 18:33, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

NeXTstep is spelled wrong. The name changed over time but it never was "NexTSTEP". Names were (in that order): NeXTstep, NeXTStep, NeXTSTEP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Digital Lifestyle (talk • contribs) 10:36, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

"simple"

This file is called Unix history-simple.svg, and some of the recent changes (include numerous niche forks of Linux and GNU with very technical and verbose titles) didn't seem to align too well with the goal of simplicity. Also, as Linux and GNU aren't direct descendants of Unix, those additions didn't seem to be very relevant to a genealogy of Unix and certainly shouldn't take up as much horizontal space as all the other Unices combined. Therefore, I reverted to the latest version before those additions. As those additions might indeed be relevant and very interesting to a history of Linux and GNU, I suggest creating a different file, maybe "Unix Linux GNU history.svg". --KommissärMatthäi (talk) 19:18, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I just uploaded the reverted file to File:Unix-like history.svg (which needs updating). --Xiloynaha (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Propose renaming 'Linux' stem to 'GNU/Linux', plus related changes

Omitting from this diagram any mention of the GNU Project—with its founding goal of creating a "free" OS compatible with Unix—is, I feel, disingenuous. It misappropriates a significant part of the history to develop a Unix-like replacement: the Project itself predates the appearance of the Linux kernel by nearly a decade.

I propose:

1. Renaming all existing instances of 'Linux' to 'GNU/Linux'.
2. The addition of a new text box, aligned with 1983 and reaching down to just above the existing 'Linux 0.0.1' box, labeled 'GNU Project' or 'GNU System', or, simply, 'GNU'.

What are people's thoughts on this? --Argus caw (talk) 21:09, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. Another option is to remove Minix and Linux from this diagram altogether, since they're only UNIX “clones,” not related to the original UNIX. --Xiloynaha (talk) 03:54, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

In the meantime, I drew a dotted line between Minix & Linux and the Unix family. --Xiloynaha (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Oppose adding the POV "GNU/Linux" construct. Fact is, GNU tools are not part of every Linux distribution. And, who's there will probably always be some use of GNU project software in many Linux systems, their relative importance has declined as computing has changed, as Unix-like operating systems are no longer primarily used on servers and other backbone systems. In short, the idea that Linux needs GNU is false, and this diagram should not be used to push GNU's claims. Oknazevad (talk) 01:34, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

BSD license

Shouldn't 4.3BSD and 4.4BSD still be "orange"? The problem first solved by 386BSD in 1992 were the still AT&T licensed files in the system AFAIR. --Tuxman (talk) 21:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Fixed in today's upload: the 4.3BSDs are now orange, and only 4.4BSD-Lite is mentioned, not 4.4BSD-Encumbered. --Xiloynaha (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

New Version with clickable links

Hey there, I just made a new version of the file with clickable Wikipedia links: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unix_history-simple_with_links.svg But my account is too new to change the file. Maybe someone could to that for me? If this is the wrong place to ask I'm sorry it's the first time I do this. --Flugstein

I don't think we should change to that. The image is used by many different language Wikipedias, so links pointing only to the English Wikipedia are a bad idea. Sorry, I know how much work these svg files can be, so I appreciate the effort, but the main image should remain link free. Oknazevad (talk) 01:19, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

MINIX license

AFAIK, MINIX became open-source in 2000, under a BSD license, and before that, it was a proprietary software. Is there a reason why it's all green or is it a mistake? — Giorgi Gzirishvili (T · C), 15:06, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Mistake, probably. Minix was initially proprietary software. It's also mentioned in Minix#Licensing. — 185.70.52.202

z/OS

Does including z/OS here really make sense? It does have a UNIX subsystem, just as Windows NT 4.0 had one, and like Windows 10 now has a Linux sub-system. But the base system is not UNIX-like. --eugrus (talk) 14:29, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Well since it is "UNIX official" it is more Unix than anything. Altanner1991 (talk) 17:40, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Idea: add Plan 9

As Minix has a place in this diagram, Plan 9 should probably be added as well, probably as a descendant of V10 UNIX as it kept the rc shell, Mk, (a successor of) the Blit and other ideas - mainly continuing the Unix system with a new name. Tuxman (talk) 10:10, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Unix v9/10 license

Why are V9 and V10 Unix displayed as "closed source"? Although they never existed as complete operating systems, it eventually became Plan 9 (see one paragraph above this one) and parts of it are, indeed, Open Source. Tuxman (talk) 15:04, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Illumos

Anyone against breaking apart the "OpenSolaris & derivatives" node into two separate nodes for OpenSolaris and Illumos? OpenSolaris was relatively short lived (<2 years), whereas Illumos still receives commits to this day and is notable enough to have its own page in at least 16 different languages on Wikipedia. Casiotone Nation (talk) 02:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable enough. Tuxman (talk) 12:00, 15 January 2024 (UTC)