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Date:      Sun, 1 Oct 2000 13:06:36 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
Cc:        Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@inwind.it>, cjclark@alum.mit.edu, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: The origins of FreeBSD (was: Unix 2000...)
Message-ID:  <20001001130636.K43885@wantadilla.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <200010010240.TAA18898@usr05.primenet.com>; from tlambert@primenet.com on Sun, Oct 01, 2000 at 02:40:52AM %2B0000
References:  <20001001115221.H43885@wantadilla.lemis.com> <200010010240.TAA18898@usr05.primenet.com>

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On Sunday,  1 October 2000 at  2:40:52 +0000, Terry Lambert wrote:
>> On Sunday,  1 October 2000 at  2:03:47 +0000, Terry Lambert wrote:
>>>> Four years... hmmm, correct me if I am wrong or partial: in four
>>>> years, the FreeBSD Project not only developed a whole operating
>>>> system, but also achieved technical excellence.
>>>
>>> FreeBSD started from 386BSD ~ June of 1994.
>>
>> No, you're out by a year.  Mid-1993.
>
> I was approached to be on the core team in May of 1994, which
> I declined because of the upcoming USL purchase by my then
> employer Novel UNIX Systems Group, which could have put FreeBSD
> on shaky legal ground with regards to intellectual property,
> were I a core team member.  I didn't leave Novell for Artisoft,
> until I had rallied the troops to first get FreeBSD and NetBSD
> the same grace period that BSDI got (rather than a "cease and
> desist" order), and later, to get the lawsuit dropped entirely.
> I left for Artisoft on October 20th, 1994.
>
> If you want to pick nits, you could go to the archive on Minnie,
> and check out the Usenet article in which Lynne lambasted the
> patchkit, and the later one in which Bill withdrew permission
> for the 0.5 interim release.  That was _truly_ the birthday of
> FreeBSD.

Agreed, it's a good idea to check sources before sending mail.  But
since you obviously haven't been able to find it, I don't see why I
should follow this particular source.  I'll quote a different source
instead, the release notes for FreeBSD 1.0:

  === root@wantadilla (/dev/ttyp6) /cd/8/cdinstal 26 -> ls -l /cd/8/cdinstal/
  total 3
  -rw-rw-r--  1 root  wheel     2356 Nov 22  1993 INSTALL.TXT
  -rw-rw-r--  1 root  wheel  1228800 Nov 22  1993 cdins_ah.flp
  -rw-rw-r--  1 root  wheel  1228800 Nov 22  1993 cdins_bt.flp
  === root@wantadilla (/dev/ttyp6) /cd/8/cdinstal 27 -> cat INSTALL.TXT 
                      CDROM FLOPPY INSTALLATION NOTES
                                  FreeBSD
                                Release 1.0
  
  Welcome to FreeBSD!  This document has been put together in an effort
  to make initial installation of the system from floppy as easy as possible.
  
  If you have either a SCSI cdrom drive or one of the supported Mitsumi
  CDROM drives you can use the cdins-*.flp to install you system with.  This
  is much easier than using the 3 floppy install method.

Apart from that, I first went to Walnut Creek CDROM on Tuesday, 28
September 1993, and met Rod Grimes there.  They also had a FreeBSD
poster on the wall (the same one that went on the 1.0 distribution
CD-ROM).

> If you want to go back to the origins of 386BSD, that was about
> the end of the first quarter in 1992, though it wasn't published
> widely until later.

Right, mid-March IIRC, but I can't find the announcement.  0.1 was
sent out on 14 July 1992, with some strange reference to the French
National Day.

> If you want to trace the lineage further, I think you could trace it
> back to Bell Labs in 1974 or so.  8-).

1969.

Greg
--
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