Talk:Unix/Archive 8

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Archive 5

Is Android a "Unix"?

In this edit, "As of 2014, the Unix version with the largest installed base is Apple's macOS." was changed to "As of 2014, the Unix version with the largest installed base are Google's Android and Apple's macOS."

That was subsequently reverted in this edit, with the comment "android isn't really unix, unlike macos".

Then the reversion was reverted. This appears to be a case of BOLD, revert, discuss, with the first change being bold, followed by a reversion, so the next step should be a discussion, not the beginnings of an edit war.

So:

macOS is a "trademark Unix", but Android isn't. If Unix means "trademark Unix", the Unix version with the largest installed base is macOS, unless one of the other trademark Unixes has managed to gain more market share. Note that the only Linux distribution that's a "trademark Unix" appears to be Inspur K-UX; Android (operating system) isn't one of them.

There's already a page for Unix-like systems; I think Android could be considered a "Unix-like system", as could iOS, so the top two Unix-like systems, in terms of market share, are probably Android and iOS. I don't know what the sum of the market shares of all "GNU/Linux" distributions (a category in which I don't include Android, given that it uses the Bionic C library rather than the GNU C library), so, if we count "GNU/Linux", as the collection of all Linux distributions using GNU software for a large chunk of their userlands, as a single OS, I don't know whether it's ahead of macOS in market share or not. Guy Harris (talk) 18:41, 28 April 2018 (UTC)