Re: [Groff] groff's license file COPYING

[Ted Harding]

On 06-Dec-03 Bernd Warken wrote:
>>     groff - The classic UNIX text processing package.
>>     Copyright (C) 1997-2004 Free Software Foundation (FSF).
> 
> It is a bad idea to speak about UNIX.  This name was legally robbed
> and sold.  Its changing owners still provide lots of trouble.

This is always a touchy point. There is a definite sense of
usage in which "UNIX" or "Unix" is a generic term rather than
a trademark, just as someone may call a vaccuum cleaner a
"hoover" or a ball-point pen a "biro" (or, and mainly UK people
will understand this properly, a flush toilet a "crapper").

I.e. what was once a trademark or a manufacturer's name became
synonymous with a whole class of products of essentially similar
concept and functionality.

In that sense, Linux is a "unix" system, since what it does
and the way it does it are recognisably in the same class as
"real" UNIX® systems. Solaris is UNIX, and AIX, and HP-UX,
and NeXTStep, and so are the BSDs (probably more closely so
than Linux), and ...

(I remember when my Linux first came to my notice, via a
column in the Manchester Computing Centre  Newsletter of
April 1992 headed "Free PC Unixes available", which announced
early versions of Linux and FreeBSD. I was round there very
quickly ... )

I don't think, for instance, that "Text Processing in UNIX"
is referring to "UNIX" in any commercial or trademarked sense.
It's about troff, the classic "unix" text-processing package.

However, if there are concerns about the above wording, it
could possibly be slightly re-phrased to

   "groff - The classic text processing package originally
    developed for UNIX."

This does, however, somewhat blunt its edge, since text-processing
on Unix meant troff and nothing else, for a very long time -- which
shows how good it was and how devoted to it users were.

Or maybe replace "UNIX" by "Unix" or "unix". I don't know:
frankly, I'm as bothered about it as I am about "hoover".

Best wishes to all,
Ted.


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Date: 06-Dec-03                                       Time: 21:02:59
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