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Unix is an [old](old.md) [operating system](operating_system.md) developed since 1960s as a research project of [Bell Labs](bell_labs.md), which has become one of the most influential pieces of software in history and whose principles (e.g. the [Unix philosophy](unix_philosophy.md)) live on in many so called Unix-like operating systems such as [Linux](linux.md) and [BSD](bsd.md) (at least to some degree). The original system itself is no longer in use, the name UNIX is nowadays a trademark and a certification.
Unix has reached the highest level a software can reach: it has transcended its implementation and became a [de facto standard](de_facto_standard.md). This means it has become a set of interface conventions, cultural and philosophical ideas rather than being a single system, it lives on as a concept that has many implementations. This is extremely important as we don't depend on any single Unix implementation but we have a great variety of choice between which we can switch without greater issues. This is very important for [freedom](freedom.md) -- it prevents monopolization -- and its one of the important reasons to use unix-like systems.
## History
In the 1960s, Bell Labs along with other groups were developing [Multics](multics.md), a kind of [operating system](os.md) -- however the project failed and was abandoned for its complexity and expensiveness of development. In 1969 two Multics developers, [Ken Thompson](key_thompson.md) and [Dennis Ritchie](dennis_ritchie.md), then started to create their own system, this time with a different philosophy; that of [simplicity](minimalism.md) (see [Unix philosophy](unix_philosophy.md)). They weren't alone in developing the system, a number of other hackers helped program such things as a file system, [shell](shell.md) and simple utility programs. At VCF East 2019 Thompson said that they developed Unix as a working system in three weeks. At this point Unix was written in [assembly](assembly.md).