why?

[Jabird 0]

every time i see the word Unix this U is *'ed or some other letter in the word is stared is it bad luck to say Unix or something?

[Maillion 0]

Most people do that to prevent the "trademark" symbols, perhaps to avoid copyright laws. (Various countries have different laws - using the name is not a good idea in some countries.) Another reason is the same reason that so many people use various words related to MicroSoft ...

[Tokes 0]

Isn't the * symbol for wildcard, so *nix means anything Unix based which is easier than saying "Linux and Unix" every time.

[martouf 0]

Jabird: they're both right.

 

Maillion is right because at one time AT&T vigorously defended

its Unix and related trademarks. Hashing up the name was a way

to make the reference but without having to add the symbol

and "Unix is a trademark of AT&T" footnote.

 

Tokes is right because collectively referring to all the various

flavors of 'nix' with a wildcard is simple and efficient.

 

Xenix

AIX

HP/UX

IRIX

Linux

System V Unix

BSD Unix

.

.

.

and so on.