why?

#1 Jabird

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Posted 19 January 2004 - 11:06 PM

every time i see the word Unix this U is *'ed or some other letter in the word is stared is it bad luck to say Unix or something?

#2 Maillion

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Posted 21 January 2004 - 08:42 PM

Most people do that to prevent the "trademark" symbols, perhaps to avoid copyright laws. (Various countries have different laws - using the name is not a good idea in some countries.) Another reason is the same reason that so many people use various words related to MicroSoft ™...

#3 Tokes

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Posted 31 July 2004 - 10:49 AM

Isn't the * symbol for wildcard, so *nix means anything Unix based which is easier than saying "Linux and Unix" every time.

#4 martouf

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Posted 31 July 2004 - 04:03 PM

Jabird: they're both right.

Maillion is right because at one time AT&T vigorously defended
its Unix and related trademarks. Hashing up the name was a way
to make the reference but without having to add the ™ symbol
and "Unix™ is a trademark of AT&T" footnote.

Tokes is right because collectively referring to all the various
flavors of 'nix' with a wildcard is simple and efficient.

Xenix
AIX
HP/UX
IRIX
Linux
System V Unix
BSD Unix
.
.
.
and so on.