
The origin of the name Posix. - tjr
http://www.stallman.org/articles/posix.html
======
mturmon
I think the story of Stallman's influence over the committee is interesting.

The general template is, there's a bunch of people that discuss the ideas
endlessly, but leaving certain key issues, or perhaps the main issue,
undecided.

The strategic choice, if you care about the outcome, is to ensure you are
present at the bitter end, when the committee is writing down its final
recommendation, and then persuasively suggest the solution you favor.

The non-strategic choice is to join in the endless debate at the other end of
the process. You will tire out, possibly get angry, and lose your position as
the neutral arbiter which you will need at the end.

------
wmf
I had no idea RMS participated in POSIX to devalue AT&T Unix. It seemed like
ten years later the commercial Unix vendors were trying to use POSIX and
UNIX(R) pedantry against Linux.

~~~
ordinary
The list of things rms has had a hand in is pretty intimidating.

~~~
__rkaup__
What's the _most_ intimidating?

~~~
p4bl0
His beard.

------
leoc
> [Sun May 17 2009] [15:03:35] <stu8ball> rmsgnu: Is it true you deliberately
> named POSIX with a "POS" for "Piece of Shit" in it?

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:03:41] <rmsgnu> because not everyone else here was on
voice.

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:03:43] <telaviv> rmsgnu: so what is the the next big
step for the fsf? New software? Winning some court battle?

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:03:50] <stu8ball> Given that you're a Lisp hacker I
would assume you'd dislike such standardisation efforts.

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:03:59] <stu8ball> w.r.t Common Lisp

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:09] <rmsgnu> No, POSIX refers to "portable operating
system interface" with an x.

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:23] <telaviv> haha

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:29] <stu8ball> I know that's the _official_ meaning

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:33] <stu8ball> ;)

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:34] <rmsgnu> They were going to call it IEEEIX, which
sounds like a screem of horror.

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:34] <rejohn> who is on voip now?

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:50] <sn9> luckily, "mueslix" is already trademarked

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:53] <rejohn> telaviv: where are you now?

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:55] <rmsgnu> I figured nobody would actually call it
that and they would instead

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:04:58] <vsayer> i'm on voip

[Sun May 17 2009] [15:05:09] <rmsgnu> call it "a spec for Unix-like systems".

[http://www.thelinuxlink.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=40...](http://www.thelinuxlink.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4058)

------
maw
For more on rms and POSIX, see:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX#512-_vs_1024-byte_blocks>.

Edit: better link:
[http://linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_intervi...](http://linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html?page=2),
last question.

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eridius
Why were they going to go with IEEEIX in the first place? Or rather, why the
"IX" suffix? To my knowledge, the name UNIX was a play on the name Multics,
and the IX in UNIX doesn't have any independent meaning.

~~~
elwin
A lot of Unix variants used the IX suffix (AIX, IRIX, Xenix...), probably to
make it obvious that they were Unix variants.

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zoowar
Sadly, what POSIX set out to achieve has devolved such that each mobile
platform has a unique programming interface.

~~~
meastham
Actually, both popular mobile operating systems have a POSIX-y system
programming interface under the hood. Whether application developers can get
at it is a different matter.

~~~
hakl
Even Symbian recently got a POSIX-layer:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.I.P.S._Is_POSIX_on_Symbian> I have no idea how
complete it is, but they did manage to port Qt.

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benihana
Since rms came up with the name, you can pretty much assume that he thinks
it's the greatest thing that could have possibly happened.

~~~
imurray
The record shows a rather more reflective attitude:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1796989>

------
IgorPartola
Upvote what you want. Personally, I would rather see a single page that shows
where all the UNIX-related names came from. That way we'd have one single
story and be done with it.

