[TUHS] Sockets and the true UNIX

[lm@mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)]

On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 09:01:12AM -0700, Ian Zimmerman wrote:
> This question is motivated by the posters for whom FreeBSD is not Unix
> enough :-)
> 
> Probably the best known contribution of the Berkeley branch of Unix is
> the sockets API for IP networking.  But today, if for no other reason
> than the X/Open group of standards, sockets are the preferred networking
> API everywhere, even on true AT&T derived UNIX variants.  So they must
> have been merged back at some point, or reimplemented.  My question is,
> when and how did that happen?
> 
> And if there isn't a simple answer because it happened at different
> times and in different ways for each variant, all the better :-)

I'm pretty sure the two main System V based TCP/IP stacks were STREAMS
based: the Lachman one (which I ported to the ETA-10 and to SCO Unix)
and the Mentat one that was done for Sun.  The socket API was sort of
bolted on top of the STREAMS stuff, you could get to the STREAMS stuff
directly (I think, it's been a long time).

The STREAMS stuff never performed well and the BSD TCP stack or something
like it went into Solaris at some point.  That's another "I think".  If
you want the gory details I'll ask Neal Nuckolls, he would know, he was
in the networking group and worked closely with Mentat.