Unix brain damage
Something that has to be done to break a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-Unix system so that it will interoperate with Unix systems. The hack may qualify as “Unix brain damage” if the program conforms to published standards and the Unix program in question does not. Unix brain damage happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to change their ways to match non-conforming behaviour than it is to change all the hundreds of thousands of Unix systems out there.
An example of Unix brain damage is a kluge in a mail server to recognise bare line feed (the Unix newline) as an equivalent form to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a hardened jock weep.
[Jargon File]
Read Also:
- Unix conspiracy
[ITS] According to a conspiracy theory long popular among ITS and TOPS-20 fans, Unix’s growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose intent was to hobble AT&T’s competitors by making them dependent upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T’s control. This would be accomplished […]
- Unixes
Trademark. 1. a multiuser, multitasking computer operating system. noun trademark 1. a multi-user multitasking operating system found on many types of computer
- Unix international
body (UI) A consortium including Sun, AT&T and others formed to promote an open environment based on Unix System V, including the Open Look windowing system.
- Unixism
operating system, jargon A piece of code or a coding technique that depends on the protected multitasking environment with relatively low process-spawn overhead that exists on virtual-memory Unix systems. Common Unixisms include: gratuitous use of “fork”; the assumption that certain undocumented but well-known features of Unix libraries such as “stdio” are supported elsewhere; reliance on […]
- Unix man page
Unix manual page