What is the meaning of *nix?

Question

What is the meaning of *nix, and what is its relation with Ruby?

Just saw that in an interview question... I think there is something to do with UNIX distros, but I

Answer 1

"*nix" refers to the Unix family of operating systems and its FOSS variants (Linux, FreeBSD, etc.). They have a different API than Windows, so any programming or scripting language that runs on them will have slightly different behavior and capabilities than on Windows.