CompuServe Messages

Xenix and Progress

    26-Dec-91 15:34:25
Fm: Greg Comeau@Comeau Cmptg 72331,3421
To: David McCabe 70404,1056
>They told me that XENIX is a "clone" of UNIX. Is this true? Yes and no. Earlier XENIX's were literally based on UNIX source. However they both took their own tangents. At one point or another, AT&T set up trying to standardized UNIX System V. Somewhere is that process, XENIX came back to being more and more compliant with System V, but not by being based on the newer UNIX source, but the the XENIX kernel people doing the compliant coding themselves. So, XENIX is not quite a clone as it was at one point derived from the real thing, however, it has taken on a life of it's own including its path at being compliant with System V, hence it's not quite a clone so to speak. In any event, XENIX 386 and the pre-System V Release V UNIX 386's are quite close (they do differ though and in some cases you can be up the creek, but in many you are not).