From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 23 06:40:48 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E43E1065674; Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:40:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mckusick@mckusick.com) Received: from chez.mckusick.com (chez.mckusick.com [64.81.247.49]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A8B318FC1C; Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:40:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mckusick@mckusick.com) Received: from chez.mckusick.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by chez.mckusick.com (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id n3N6C4ZB090161; Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:12:04 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mckusick@chez.mckusick.com) Message-Id: <200904230612.n3N6C4ZB090161@chez.mckusick.com> To: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" In-reply-to: <20090423032057.GQ65705@dereel.lemis.com> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:12:04 -0700 From: Kirk McKusick Cc: lists@freebsdonline.com, Rick N , Chuck Robey , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Bill Joy's contribution (was: BSD) X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:40:48 -0000 Your summary and timeline are accurate. Bill singlehanded started the BSD distributions in 1977. 1BSD had Pascal, csh, and ex. Bill wrote the first two and vastly improved an editor that he got from someone else. By 2BSD he had contributions from other graduate students at Berkeley including myself. CSRG was formed as 3BSD was coming together and included code from many folks inside and outside of Berkeley. Kirk McKusick =-=-=-= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:20:57 +1000 From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" To: Chuck Robey Cc: lists@freebsdonline.com, Rick N , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Bill Joy's contribution (was: BSD) On Wednesday, 22 April 2009 at 20:07:54 -0400, Chuck Robey wrote: > Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: >> On Tuesday, 21 April 2009 at 11:05:24 +0000, Rick N wrote: >>> (Actually) and Histrorically, Sun had a lot to do with the BSD's >>> (and vice-versa), Bill Joy's early work and contibution to the >>> BSD/Unix which later he took to form a little company called Sun >>> Microsytems in the late '70's. >> >> This is more than a slight understatement. Bill Joy created BSD, more >> or less single-handedly. > > Suppose this could be true, but it's not what I read ... that it > started with the 4 folks in the CSRG, but began (pretty early on) > getting contributions from all over the globe. I wouldn't want to > minimize what Bill Joy did, but saying he did it "more of less > singlehandedly" seems to be an unfair exaggeration. The CSRG came much later. There's some relatively accurate info in Wikipedia. First, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bsd : Other universities became interested in the software at Berkeley, and so in 1977 Bill Joy, then a graduate student at Berkeley, assembled and sent out tapes of the first Berkeley Software Distribution (1BSD). At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Systems_Research_Group : In 1980 Professor Fabry signed a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop UNIX even further to accommodate the specific requirements of the ARPAnet. With the funding of DARPA, Fabry created the Computer Systems Research Group. Clearly Bill Joy didn't do all the work over the years, but he started it off ("created it"). Once CSRG came along, he was only one of many. Of course, the real person to state the question is mckusick@, who described the whole thing in "Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix" (http://oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/kirkmck.html). Greg