From owner-freebsd-doc Fri Sep 27 14:24:26 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2903637B401 for ; Fri, 27 Sep 2002 14:24:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rwcrmhc53.attbi.com (rwcrmhc53.attbi.com [204.127.198.39]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B80F443E6A for ; Fri, 27 Sep 2002 14:24:24 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([12.242.158.67]) by rwcrmhc53.attbi.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.27 201-229-121-127-20010626) with ESMTP id <20020927212424.RMQH15492.rwcrmhc53.attbi.com@localhost.localdomain> for ; Fri, 27 Sep 2002 21:24:24 +0000 Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id g8RLQg3q015292 for ; Fri, 27 Sep 2002 14:26:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.5/8.12.5/Submit) id g8RLQbEM015289; Fri, 27 Sep 2002 14:26:37 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) X-Authentication-Warning: localhost.localdomain: jojo set sender to swear@attbi.com using -f To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Congrats to Brett Glass for new BSD history article From: swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: 27 Sep 2002 14:26:37 -0700 Message-ID: <0rit0r5dki.t0r@localhost.localdomain> Lines: 44 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Which is at http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,555451,00.asp and has been mentioned at http://daily.daemonnews.org/ and http://slashdot.org/ http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/27/1655220&mode=thread&tid=122&threshold=0 That was much better than the protest he seemed to be contemplating. And good coverage and detail for an article. I'll mention one quibble which someone might be able to straighten me out about. Though it's believable that the "Berkeley Software Distribution" name was "first given" to something that was only an "enhancement" or "suppliment", it seems to me that the introduction is somewhat misleading by not mentioning how soon the term "BSD" became a name for a complete OS. This article from 1984 certainly implies it was thought of as an OS long before the mass-replacement of the AT&T code of the early '90s before it was "freed": http://linuxtoday.com/stories/3909.html A History of UNIX before Berkeley: UNIX® Evolution, 1975-1984 And it provides this clue which implies that the B.S.D. was actually an AT&T release which only contained some Berkeley software: And when the 4.1BSD release of the system came out, I was pleasantly surprised to see that style and diction were present [Cher1981a]. Bell Labs has a policy of sometimes releasing software to educational institutions; this probably explains the release at Berkeley. Though the B.S.D. long contained (some) "free" Berkely code, I don't think it's fair to try to get people to consider the B.S.D. as having always been free, even if it was licensed to some schools for no cost. The 75-84 history also refers to "buying a 4.1 or 4.2BSD system", which speaks to its non-freeness (in 1984), but that might be referring only to the price of the tapes and handling, etc.; I can't remember if AT&T licensed their part of the BSDs for a fee or only to the schools for free. Anybody know when (or if) the B.S.D. first became a complete OS? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message