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Proprietary software is software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing the software or modifying it, and—in some cases, as is the case with some patent-encumbered and EULA -bound software—from making use of the software on their own, thereby restricting their freedoms.

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78-570: The ARC Macro Language ( AML ) is a proprietary high-level algorithmic language for generating applications in ArcInfo . It was designed by ESRI in 1986 specifically for their command line -driven ARC/INFO geographical information system . AML's syntax was based on CPL (the shell language of the PRIMOS operating system) because the majority of ARC/INFO installations at that time ran on Prime computers . The macro language features include

156-429: A time-sharing configuration, as well as portability. Unix systems are characterized by various concepts: the use of plain text for storing data; a hierarchical file system ; treating devices and certain types of inter-process communication (IPC) as files; and the use of a large number of software tools , small programs that can be strung together through a command-line interpreter using pipes , as opposed to using

234-484: A time-sharing operating system for the GE 645 mainframe computer. Multics featured several innovations , but also presented severe problems. Frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics, but not by its goals, individual researchers at Bell Labs started withdrawing from the project. The last to leave were Ken Thompson , Dennis Ritchie , Douglas McIlroy , and Joe Ossanna , who decided to reimplement their experiences in

312-476: A trade secret . Software can be made available with fewer restrictions on licensing or source-code access; software that satisfies certain conditions of freedom and openness is known as " free " or " open-source ." Since license agreements do not override applicable copyright law or contract law , provisions in conflict with applicable law are not enforceable. Some software is specifically licensed and not sold, in order to avoid limitations of copyright such as

390-507: A "mixed source" model including both free and non-free software in the same distribution. Most if not all so-called proprietary UNIX distributions are mixed source software, bundling open-source components like BIND , Sendmail , X Window System , DHCP , and others along with a purely proprietary kernel and system utilities. Some free software packages are also simultaneously available under proprietary terms. Examples include MySQL , Sendmail and ssh. The original copyright holders for

468-519: A 1999 interview, Dennis Ritchie voiced his opinion that Linux and BSD Unix operating systems are a continuation of the basis of the Unix design and are derivatives of Unix: I think the Linux phenomenon is quite delightful, because it draws so strongly on the basis that Unix provided. Linux seems to be among the healthiest of the direct Unix derivatives, though there are also the various BSD systems as well as

546-523: A February 21, 1997, internal Microsoft memo drafted for Bill Gates : Early versions of the iPhone SDK were covered by a non-disclosure agreement . The agreement forbade independent developers from discussing the content of the interfaces. Apple discontinued the NDA in October 2008. Any dependency on the future versions and upgrades for a proprietary software package can create vendor lock-in , entrenching

624-467: A Government Security Program (GSP) to allow governments to view source code and Microsoft security documentation, of which the Chinese government was an early participant. The program is part of Microsoft's broader Shared Source Initiative which provides source code access for some products. The Reference Source License (Ms-RSL) and Limited Public License (Ms-LPL) are proprietary software licenses where

702-460: A convenient platform for programmers developing software to be run on it and on other systems, rather than for non-programmers. The system grew larger as the operating system started spreading in academic circles, and as users added their own tools to the system and shared them with colleagues. At first, Unix was not designed to support multi-tasking or to be portable . Later, Unix gradually gained multi-tasking and multi-user capabilities in

780-401: A copy can decide whether, and how much, to charge for a copy or related services. Proprietary software that comes for no cost is called freeware . Proponents of commercial proprietary software argue that requiring users to pay for software as a product increases funding or time available for the research and development of software. For example, Microsoft says that per-copy fees maximize

858-564: A license for the Internet forum software vBulletin can modify the source for their own site but cannot redistribute it. This is true for many web applications, which must be in source code form when being run by a web server. The source code is covered by a non-disclosure agreement or a license that allows, for example, study and modification, but not redistribution. The text-based email client Pine and certain implementations of Secure Shell are distributed with proprietary licenses that make

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936-560: A monopoly position. Proprietary software may also have licensing terms that limit the usage of that software to a specific set of hardware. Apple has such a licensing model for macOS , an operating system which is limited to Apple hardware, both by licensing and various design decisions. This licensing model has been affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit . Proprietary software which

1014-405: A new project of smaller scale. This new operating system was initially without organizational backing, and also without a name. The new operating system was a single-tasking system. In 1970, the group coined the name Unics for Uniplexed Information and Computing Service as a pun on Multics , which stood for Multiplexed Information and Computer Services . Brian Kernighan takes credit for

1092-512: A potential universal operating system, suitable for computers of all sizes. The Unix environment and the client–server program model were essential elements in the development of the Internet and the reshaping of computing as centered in networks rather than in individual computers. Both Unix and the C programming language were developed by AT&T and distributed to government and academic institutions, which led to both being ported to

1170-420: A reference directory layout for Unix-like operating systems; it has mainly been used in Linux. The Unix system is composed of several components that were originally packaged together. By including the development environment, libraries, documents and the portable, modifiable source code for all of these components, in addition to the kernel of an operating system, Unix was a self-contained software system. This

1248-504: A representation like Un*x , *NIX , or *N?X is used to indicate all operating systems similar to Unix. This comes from the use of the asterisk ( * ) and the question mark characters as wildcard indicators in many utilities. This notation is also used to describe other Unix-like systems that have not met the requirements for UNIX branding from the Open Group. The Open Group requests that UNIX always be used as an adjective followed by

1326-449: A set of cultural norms for developing software, norms which became as important and influential as the technology of Unix itself; this has been termed the Unix philosophy . The TCP/IP networking protocols were quickly implemented on the Unix versions widely used on relatively inexpensive computers, which contributed to the Internet explosion of worldwide, real-time connectivity and formed

1404-439: A set of simple tools, each of which performs a limited, well-defined function. A unified and inode -based filesystem and an inter-process communication mechanism known as " pipes " serve as the main means of communication, and a shell scripting and command language (the Unix shell ) is used to combine the tools to perform complex workflows. In the early 1990s, AT&T sold its rights in Unix to Novell , which then sold

1482-487: A single monolithic program that includes all of the same functionality. These concepts are collectively known as the " Unix philosophy ". Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike summarize this in The Unix Programming Environment as "the idea that the power of a system comes more from the relationships among programs than from the programs themselves". By the early 1980s, users began seeing Unix as

1560-544: A single nine-track magnetic tape , earning its reputation as a portable system. The printed documentation, typeset from the online sources, was contained in two volumes. The names and filesystem locations of the Unix components have changed substantially across the history of the system. Nonetheless, the V7 implementation has the canonical early structure: The Unix system had a significant impact on other operating systems. It achieved its reputation by its interactivity, by providing

1638-481: A single user or computer. In some cases, software features are restricted during or after the trial period, a practice sometimes called crippleware . Proprietary software often stores some of its data in file formats that are incompatible with other software, and may also communicate using protocols which are incompatible. Such formats and protocols may be restricted as trade secrets or subject to patents . A proprietary application programming interface (API)

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1716-462: A software package may be ended to force users to upgrade and pay for newer versions ( planned obsolescence ). Sometimes another vendor or a software's community themselves can provide support for the software, or the users can migrate to either competing systems with longer support life cycles or to FOSS -based systems. Some proprietary software is released by their owner at end-of-life as open-source or source available software, often to prevent

1794-425: A technical measure, such as product activation , a product key or serial number, a hardware key , or copy protection . Vendors may also distribute versions that remove particular features, or versions which allow only certain fields of endeavor, such as non-commercial, educational, or non-profit use. Use restrictions vary by license: Vendors typically distribute proprietary software in compiled form, usually

1872-479: A uniform interface, but at the expense of occasionally requiring additional mechanisms such as ioctl and mode flags to access features of the hardware that did not fit the simple "stream of bytes" model. The Plan 9 operating system pushed this model even further and eliminated the need for additional mechanisms. Unix also popularized the hierarchical file system with arbitrarily nested subdirectories, originally introduced by Multics. Other common operating systems of

1950-508: A versatile document preparation system, and an efficient file system featuring sophisticated access control, mountable and de-mountable volumes, and a unified treatment of peripherals as special files ." The latter permitted the Network Control Program (NCP) to be integrated within the Unix file system, treating network connections as special files that could be accessed through standard Unix I/O calls , which included

2028-402: A wider variety of machine families than any other operating system. The Unix operating system consists of many libraries and utilities along with the master control program, the kernel . The kernel provides services to start and stop programs, handles the file system and other common "low-level" tasks that most programs share, and schedules access to avoid conflicts when programs try to access

2106-406: A work of free software, even copyleft free software, can use dual-licensing to allow themselves or others to redistribute proprietary versions. Non-copyleft free software (i.e. software distributed under a permissive free software license or released to the public domain) allows anyone to make proprietary redistributions. Free software that depends on proprietary software is considered "trapped" by

2184-484: Is a software library interface "specific to one device or, more likely to a number of devices within a particular manufacturer's product range." The motivation for using a proprietary API can be vendor lock-in or because standard APIs do not support the device's functionality. The European Commission , in its March 24, 2004, decision on Microsoft's business practices, quotes, in paragraph 463, Microsoft general manager for C++ development Aaron Contorer as stating in

2262-399: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Proprietary software Proprietary software is a subset of non-free software , a term defined in contrast to free and open-source software ; non-commercial licenses such as CC BY-NC are not deemed proprietary, but are non-free. Proprietary software may either be closed-source software or source-available software . Until

2340-489: Is no longer marketed, supported or sold by its owner is called abandonware , the digital form of orphaned works . If the proprietor of a software package should cease to exist, or decide to cease or limit production or support for a proprietary software package, recipients and users of the package may have no recourse if problems are found with the software. Proprietors can fail to improve and support software because of business problems. Support for older or existing versions of

2418-436: Is not synonymous with commercial software , although the two terms are sometimes used synonymously in articles about free software. Proprietary software can be distributed at no cost or for a fee, and free software can be distributed at no cost or for a fee. The difference is that whether proprietary software can be distributed, and what the fee would be, is at the proprietor's discretion. With free software, anyone who has

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2496-400: Is required for another party to use the software. In the case of proprietary software with source code available, the vendor may also prohibit customers from distributing their modifications to the source code. Shareware is closed-source software whose owner encourages redistribution at no cost, but which the user sometimes must pay to use after a trial period. The fee usually allows use by

2574-496: The Bell System , AT&T licensed Unix to outside parties in the late 1970s, leading to a variety of both academic and commercial Unix variants from vendors including University of California, Berkeley ( BSD ), Microsoft ( Xenix ), Sun Microsystems ( SunOS / Solaris ), HP / HPE ( HP-UX ), and IBM ( AIX ). Early versions of Unix ran on PDP-11 computers; Unix was commonly used on minicomputers and mainframes from

2652-782: The GNU Compiler Collection (and the rest of the GNU toolchain ), the GNU C library and the GNU Core Utilities  – have gone on to play central roles in other free Unix systems as well. Linux distributions , consisting of the Linux kernel and large collections of compatible software have become popular both with individual users and in business. Popular distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux , Fedora , SUSE Linux Enterprise , openSUSE , Debian , Ubuntu , Linux Mint , Slackware Linux , Arch Linux and Gentoo . A free derivative of BSD Unix, 386BSD ,

2730-586: The UNIX 98 or UNIX 03 trademarks today, after the operating system's vendor pays a substantial certification fee and annual trademark royalties to The Open Group. Systems that have been licensed to use the UNIX trademark include AIX , EulerOS , HP-UX , Inspur K-UX , IRIX , macOS , Solaris , Tru64 UNIX (formerly "Digital UNIX", or OSF/1 ), and z/OS . Notably, EulerOS and Inspur K-UX are Linux distributions certified as UNIX 03 compliant. Sometimes

2808-425: The first-sale doctrine . The owner of proprietary software exercises certain exclusive rights over the software. The owner can restrict the use, inspection of source code, modification of source code, and redistribution. Vendors typically limit the number of computers on which software can be used, and prohibit the user from installing the software on extra computers. Restricted use is sometimes enforced through

2886-468: The machine language understood by the computer's central processing unit . They typically retain the source code , or human-readable version of the software, often written in a higher level programming language . This scheme is often referred to as closed source. While most proprietary software is distributed without the source code, some vendors distribute the source code or otherwise make it available to customers. For example, users who have purchased

2964-408: The 1970s onwards. It distinguished itself from its predecessors as the first portable operating system: almost the entire operating system is written in the C programming language , which allows Unix to operate on numerous platforms. Unix systems are characterized by a modular design that is sometimes called the " Unix philosophy ". According to this philosophy, the operating system should provide

3042-625: The Free Software Foundation. This includes software written only for Microsoft Windows, or software that could only run on Java , before it became free software. Most of the software is covered by copyright which, along with contract law , patents , and trade secrets , provides legal basis for its owner to establish exclusive rights. A software vendor delineates the specific terms of use in an end-user license agreement (EULA). The user may agree to this contract in writing, interactively on screen ( clickwrap ), or by opening

3120-487: The Open Group Base Specification. In 1999, in an effort towards compatibility, several Unix system vendors agreed on SVR4's Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) as the standard for binary and object code files. The common format allows substantial binary compatibility among different Unix systems operating on the same CPU architecture. The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard was created to provide

3198-491: The UNIX trademark to The Open Group , an industry consortium founded in 1996. The Open Group allows the use of the mark for certified operating systems that comply with the Single UNIX Specification (SUS). Unix-like operating systems have been relevant since the 1990s which function similarly to Unix: popular examples are GNU (including Linux ), FreeBSD and macOS . Unix was originally meant to be

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3276-515: The ability to create onscreen menus, use and assign variables, control statement execution, and get and use map or page unit coordinates. Although the language is still supported by ESRI in modern ArcInfo Workstation environments, the language has been superseded by the geoprocessing framework , which is part of the ArcGIS suite and allows programming access using ArcObjects through VBA or Python . This cartography or mapping term article

3354-632: The added benefit of closing all connections on program exit, should the user neglect to do so. In order "to minimize the amount of code added to the basic Unix kernel ", much of the NCP code ran in a swappable user process, running only when needed. In October 1993, Novell , the company that owned the rights to the Unix System V source at the time, transferred the trademarks of Unix to the X/Open Company (now The Open Group ), and in 1995 sold

3432-465: The basis for a widely implemented operating system interface standard (POSIX, see above). The C programming language soon spread beyond Unix, and is now ubiquitous in systems and applications programming. Early Unix developers were important in bringing the concepts of modularity and reusability into software engineering practice, spawning a "software tools" movement. Over time, the leading developers of Unix (and programs that ran on it) established

3510-435: The basis for implementations on many other platforms. The Unix policy of extensive on-line documentation and (for many years) ready access to all system source code raised programmer expectations, and contributed to the launch of the free software movement in 1983. In 1983, Richard Stallman announced the GNU (short for "GNU's Not Unix") project, an ambitious effort to create a free software Unix-like system—"free" in

3588-416: The box containing the software ( shrink wrap licensing ). License agreements are usually not negotiable . Software patents grant exclusive rights to algorithms, software features, or other patentable subject matter , with coverage varying by jurisdiction. Vendors sometimes grant patent rights to the user in the license agreement. The source code for a piece of proprietary software is routinely handled as

3666-492: The command interpreter an ordinary user-level program, with additional commands provided as separate programs, was another Multics innovation popularized by Unix. The Unix shell used the same language for interactive commands as for scripting ( shell scripts  – there was no separate job control language like IBM's JCL ). Since the shell and OS commands were "just another program", the user could choose (or even write) their own shell. New commands could be added without changing

3744-479: The core of the Mac OS X operating system, later renamed macOS . Unix-like operating systems are widely used in modern servers , workstations , and mobile devices . In the late 1980s, an open operating system standardization effort now known as POSIX provided a common baseline for all operating systems; IEEE based POSIX around the common structure of the major competing variants of the Unix system, publishing

3822-546: The era had ways to divide a storage device into multiple directories or sections, but they had a fixed number of levels, often only one level. Several major proprietary operating systems eventually added recursive subdirectory capabilities also patterned after Multics. DEC's RSX-11M 's "group, user" hierarchy evolved into OpenVMS directories, CP/M 's volumes evolved into MS-DOS 2.0+ subdirectories, and HP's MPE group.account hierarchy and IBM's SSP and OS/400 library systems were folded into broader POSIX file systems. Making

3900-679: The first POSIX standard in 1988. In the early 1990s, a separate but very similar effort was started by an industry consortium, the Common Open Software Environment (COSE) initiative, which eventually became the Single UNIX Specification (SUS) administered by The Open Group . Starting in 1998, the Open Group and IEEE started the Austin Group , to provide a common definition of POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification, which, by 2008, had become

3978-420: The idea, but adds that "no one can remember" the origin of the final spelling Unix . Dennis Ritchie, Doug McIlroy, and Peter G. Neumann also credit Kernighan. The operating system was originally written in assembly language , but in 1973, Version 4 Unix was rewritten in C . Version 4 Unix, however, still had much PDP-11 specific code, and was not suitable for porting. The first port to another platform

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4056-447: The late 1960s, computers—especially large and expensive mainframe computers , machines in specially air-conditioned computer rooms—were usually leased to customers rather than sold . Service and all software available were usually supplied by manufacturers without separate charge until 1969. Computer vendors usually provided the source code for installed software to customers. Customers who developed software often made it available to

4134-476: The late 1970s and early 1980s, the influence of Unix in academic circles led to large-scale adoption of Unix ( BSD and System V ) by commercial startups, which in turn led to Unix fragmenting into multiple, similar — but often slightly and mutually incompatible — systems including DYNIX , HP-UX , SunOS / Solaris , AIX , and Xenix . In the late 1980s, AT&T Unix System Laboratories and Sun Microsystems developed System V Release 4 ( SVR4 ), which

4212-619: The legal status of software copyright , especially for object code , was not clear until the 1983 appeals court ruling in Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp . According to Brewster Kahle the legal characteristic of software changed also due to the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 . Starting in February 1983 IBM adopted an " object-code -only" model for a growing list of their software and stopped shipping much of

4290-484: The modern Internet: Examples of Internet services: Unix ( / ˈ j uː n ɪ k s / , YOO -niks ; trademarked as UNIX ) is a family of multitasking , multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson , Dennis Ritchie , and others. Initially intended for use inside

4368-428: The modular design of the Unix model, sharing components is relatively common: most or all Unix and Unix-like systems include at least some BSD code, while some include GNU utilities in their distributions. Linux and BSD Unix are increasingly filling market needs traditionally served by proprietary Unix operating systems, expanding into new markets such as the consumer desktop , mobile devices and embedded devices . In

4446-443: The more official offerings from the workstation and mainframe manufacturers. In the same interview, he states that he views both Unix and Linux as "the continuation of ideas that were started by Ken and me and many others, many years ago". OpenSolaris was the free software counterpart to Solaris developed by Sun Microsystems , which included a CDDL -licensed kernel and a primarily GNU userland. However, Oracle discontinued

4524-503: The original version of Unix – the entire system was configured using textual shell command scripts. The common denominator in the I/O system was the byte – unlike "record-based" file systems . The focus on text for representing nearly everything made Unix pipes especially useful and encouraged the development of simple, general tools that could easily be combined to perform more complicated ad hoc tasks. The focus on text and bytes made

4602-527: The profitability of software development. Proprietary software generally creates greater commercial activity over free software, especially in regard to market revenues. Proprietary software is often sold with a license that gives the end user right to use the software. UNIX Early research and development: Merging the networks and creating the Internet: Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to

4680-599: The project upon their acquisition of Sun, which prompted a group of former Sun employees and members of the OpenSolaris community to fork OpenSolaris into the illumos kernel. As of 2014, illumos remains the only active, open-source System V derivative. In May 1975, RFC 681 described the development of Network Unix by the Center for Advanced Computation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign . The Unix system

4758-712: The public without charge. Closed source means computer programs whose source code is not published except to licensees. It is available to be modified only by the organization that developed it and those licensed to use the software. In 1969, IBM, which had antitrust lawsuits pending against it, led an industry change by starting to charge separately for mainframe software and services, by unbundling hardware and software. Bill Gates ' " Open Letter to Hobbyists " in 1976 decried computer hobbyists' rampant copyright infringement of software, particularly Microsoft's Altair BASIC interpreter, and asserted that their unauthorized use hindered his ability to produce quality software. But

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4836-591: The related business operations to Santa Cruz Operation (SCO). Whether Novell also sold the copyrights to the actual software was the subject of a federal lawsuit in 2006, SCO v. Novell , which Novell won. The case was appealed, but on August 30, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed the trial decisions, closing the case. Unix vendor SCO Group Inc. accused Novell of slander of title . The present owner of

4914-482: The same resource or device simultaneously. To mediate such access, the kernel has special rights, reflected in the distinction of kernel space from user space , the latter being a lower priority realm where most application programs operate. The origins of Unix date back to the mid-1960s when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Bell Labs , and General Electric were developing Multics ,

4992-535: The sense that everyone who received a copy would be free to use, study, modify, and redistribute it. The GNU project's own kernel development project, GNU Hurd , had not yet produced a working kernel, but in 1991 Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel as free software under the GNU General Public License . In addition to their use in the GNU operating system, many GNU packages – such as

5070-427: The shell itself. Unix's innovative command-line syntax for creating modular chains of producer-consumer processes ( pipelines ) made a powerful programming paradigm ( coroutines ) widely available. Many later command-line interpreters have been inspired by the Unix shell. A fundamental simplifying assumption of Unix was its focus on newline - delimited text for nearly all file formats. There were no "binary" editors in

5148-654: The software at a nominal fee for educational use, by running on inexpensive hardware, and by being easy to adapt and move to different machines. Unix was originally written in assembly language , but was soon rewritten in C , a high-level programming language . Although this followed the lead of CTSS , Multics and Burroughs MCP , it was Unix that popularized the idea. Unix had a drastically simplified file model compared to many contemporary operating systems: treating all kinds of files as simple byte arrays. The file system hierarchy contained machine services and devices (such as printers , terminals , or disk drives ), providing

5226-561: The software from becoming unsupported and unavailable abandonware . 3D Realms and id Software are famous for the practice of releasing closed source software into the open source . Some of those kinds are free-of-charge downloads ( freeware ), some are still commercially sold (e.g. Arx Fatalis ). More examples of formerly closed-source software in the List of commercial software with available source code and List of commercial video games with available source code . Proprietary software

5304-484: The software. This is particularly common with certain programming languages . For example, the bytecode for programs written in Java can be easily decompiled to somewhat usable code, and the source code for programs written in scripting languages such as PHP or JavaScript is available at run time . Proprietary software vendors can prohibit the users from sharing the software with others. Another unique license

5382-402: The source code available. Some licenses for proprietary software allow distributing changes to the source code, but only to others licensed for the product, and some of those modifications are eventually picked up by the vendor. Some governments fear that proprietary software may include defects or malicious features which would compromise sensitive information. In 2003 Microsoft established

5460-476: The source code is made available . Governments have also been accused of adding such malware to software themselves. According to documents released by Edward Snowden , the NSA has used covert partnerships with software companies to make commercial encryption software exploitable to eavesdropping, or to insert backdoors . Software vendors sometimes use obfuscated code to impede users who would reverse engineer

5538-606: The source code, even to licensees. In 1983, binary software became copyrightable in the United States as well by the Apple vs. Franklin law decision, before which only source code was copyrightable. Additionally, the growing availability of millions of computers based on the same microprocessor architecture created for the first time an unfragmented and big enough market for binary distributed software. Software distributions considered as proprietary may in fact incorporate

5616-418: The system far more scalable and portable than other systems. Over time, text-based applications have also proven popular in application areas, such as printing languages ( PostScript , ODF ), and at the application layer of the Internet protocols , e.g., FTP , SMTP , HTTP , SOAP , and SIP . Unix popularized a syntax for regular expressions that found widespread use. The Unix programming interface became

5694-459: The trademark UNIX is The Open Group, an industry standards consortium. Only systems fully compliant with and certified to the Single UNIX Specification qualify as "UNIX" (others are called " Unix-like "). By decree of The Open Group, the term "UNIX" refers more to a class of operating systems than to a specific implementation of an operating system; those operating systems which meet The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification should be able to bear

5772-536: Was a port of Version 6, made four years later (1977) at the University of Wollongong for the Interdata 7/32 , followed by a Bell Labs port of Version 7 to the Interdata 8/32 during 1977 and 1978. Bell Labs produced several versions of Unix that are collectively referred to as Research Unix . In 1975, the first source license for UNIX was sold to Donald B. Gillies at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) Department of Computer Science. During

5850-402: Was one of the key reasons it emerged as an important teaching and learning tool and has had a broad influence. See § Impact , below. The inclusion of these components did not make the system large – the original V7 UNIX distribution, consisting of copies of all of the compiled binaries plus all of the source code and documentation occupied less than 10 MB and arrived on

5928-573: Was released in 1992 and led to the NetBSD and FreeBSD projects. With the 1994 settlement of a lawsuit brought against the University of California and Berkeley Software Design Inc. ( USL v. BSDi ) by Unix System Laboratories , it was clarified that Berkeley had the right to distribute BSD Unix for free if it so desired. Since then, BSD Unix has been developed in several different product branches, including OpenBSD and DragonFly BSD . Because of

6006-516: Was said to "present several interesting capabilities as an ARPANET mini-host". At the time, Unix required a license from Bell Telephone Laboratories that cost US$ 20,000 for non-university institutions, while universities could obtain a license for a nominal fee of $ 150. It was noted that Bell was "open to suggestions" for an ARPANET-wide license. The RFC specifically mentions that Unix "offers powerful local processing facilities in terms of user programs, several compilers , an editor based on QED ,

6084-404: Was subsequently adopted by many commercial Unix vendors. In the 1990s, Unix and Unix-like systems grew in popularity and became the operating system of choice for over 90% of the world's top 500 fastest supercomputers , as BSD and Linux distributions were developed through collaboration by a worldwide network of programmers. In 2000, Apple released Darwin , also a Unix system, which became

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