version 7

Version 7
 /vee' se'vn/, n.

   The first widely distributed version of {Unix}, released unsupported
   by Bell Labs in 1978. The term is used adjectivally to describe Unix
   features and programs that date from that release, and are thus
   guaranteed to be present and portable in all Unix versions (this was
   the standard gauge of portability before the POSIX and IEEE 1003
   standards). Note that this usage does not derive from the release
   being the "seventh version of {Unix}"; research {Unix} at Bell Labs
   has traditionally been numbered according to the edition of the
   associated documentation. Indeed, only the widely-distributed Sixth
   and Seventh Editions are widely known as V[67]; the OS that might
   today be known as `V10' is instead known in full as "Tenth Edition
   Research Unix" or just "Tenth Edition" for short. For this reason,
   "V7" is often read by cognoscenti as "Seventh Edition". See {BSD},
   {Unix}. Some old-timers impatient with commercialization and kernel
   bloat still maintain that V7 was the Last True Unix.
    

Version 7

   <operating system> (V7) The unsupported release of {Unix}
   ancestral to all current commercial versions.  {Brian
   Kernighan} announced the release of V7 in summer 1979, at the
   {Unix User's} Group meeting in Toronto.

   Before the release of the {POSIX}/{SVID} {standards}, V7's
   features were often treated as a {Unix} portability baseline.
   Some old-timers impatient with commercialisation and {kernel
   bloat} still maintain that V7 was the Last True Unix.

   See {BSD}, {USG Unix}, {System V}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1996-05-22)