Is Linux a Unix?

For all intents and purposes, a typical modern Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, Fedora, Slackware, etc) is a Unix, but strictly speaking, no system can claim to be Unix without being certified, so instead people say they are Unix-like. They are inspired by Unix, and carry on its culture.

This also applies to BSD systems.

Mac OS X is certified Unix, so it's Unix both in name and indeed. (and it's actually based on BSD).

It should be noted that since Linux itself is just a kernel, it can be used to build non-unix-like systems (such as Android).

Linux is more 'Unix-like' so yes simplistically you could call it a clone, the same is true for BSDs (although admittedly BSDs could be considered closer to Unix than Linux).

The main thing that gives Linux the Unix-like title is the fact that it is nearly fully compliant w/ POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface [for Unix]) standards that have built up over time.

The other key thing, is the inheritance of code etc, as demonstrated on Wikipedia, Linux does not actually originate from Unix sources, instead it is pretty much built from scratch (this is disputed however).

So essentially, the main thing that separates Unix from Linux is the ancestry and the standards that it meets.

The choosen answer explains it quite exhaustively, but you would have to watch a whole documentary to know all the details between the UNIX initial developement, and how Linux went out.

First you have to consider that Linux is the kernel, which was made by linus and other programmers. He chose to release it with the GPL, which by the time was a license made by the FSF, (RMS and other folks), who were also developping their own kernel and GNU.

What we usually call Linux is, at first, the kernel, plus all other tools originally coming from the GNU project. Those two project are historically different, because at the time, the kernel from the FSF folks was abandonned to favor the Linux kernel, which was much better.

I remember there is a documentary, you should really watch it, I find it important for your programming culture.

Another thing you have to consider when thinking about "*nix", is also everying involving POSIX and other architecture-standardised stuff. It's subject of OS design/research, but it defines precisely how the involved OSes works, and is crucial when you have a kernel working well with its tools.

There are lots of great answers already but I thought the views of the great Dennis Ritchie (co-creator of Unix) would be an interesting complement to the other more technical answers.

It seems that Dennis Ritchie considered Linux to be a legitimate Unix derivative. In a 1999 interview for LinuxFocus.org, he was asked,

what is your opinion about all the Linux momentum, and the decision of many companies to start developing software for it?

His response to the question was

I think the Linux phenomenon is quite delightful, because it draws so strongly on the basis that Unix provided. Linux seems to be the among the healthiest of the direct Unix derivatives, though there are also the various BSD systems as well as the more official offerings from the workstation and mainframe manufacturers. I can't help observing, of course, the "free source" Unix-derived world seems to be suffering from exactly the same kind of fragmentation and strife that occurred and is still occurring in the commercial world.