The Unix Society

[Greg Lehey]

On Sunday,  2 August 1998 at 21:18:34 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> Hmm. Looks like we need a larger umbrella group which caters for the
> preservation, use and development of all Unix varieties past and present.
> I nominate the name   The Unix Society
>
> Such a society could have chapters which focus on particular things like
> Vax Unixes, PDP-11 Unixes etc., but share common high-level goals.
>
> While I disagree with Michael's idea of total world domination by Vaxen :-),
> I believe such a society will be composed of a multitude of different beliefs,
> ideas, sub-goals and drives. So please bear this in mind when mailing to the
> mailing list!!!
>
> My main sub-goal is to provide a home for the PDP-11 stuff. I don't yet
> have the disk space for all the other Unix platforms. Mail yesterday from
> Kirk McKusick says that the 4-CD BSD set should be ready within a matter of
> days.
>
> Comments on the suggestion of `The Unix Society' as a name? I'm avoiding
> using UNIX as it's a trademark, and it's an adjective.

I don't see the difference in case between UNIX and Unix as
significant in defining what part of speech it means, and we've
already discovered that lawyers prefer UNIX, but will accept Unix if
they want to make a case about violating the conditions of use of the
name.  I find the spelling "Unix" looks like the kind of mistake that
people make when they're not aware of these niceties, so I'd prefer
not to use it.

More generally, though, there's nothing in the name that suggests
anything to do with the history of the system.  For all it says to the
outside world, it's a new competitor to USENIX.

OK, PUPS may be wearing thin, and I wasn't really serious with OUPS (I
tried, unsuccesfully, to find an expansion for OOPS), but I think we
need to look a little further if we want to change the name.

Greg
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