From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 1d0536ad for ; Sun, 14 Jul 2019 12:53:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 15A2B9B7E3; Sun, 14 Jul 2019 22:53:26 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E13809B729; Sun, 14 Jul 2019 22:52:55 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 647A89B729; Sun, 14 Jul 2019 22:52:54 +1000 (AEST) Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 897BF94BBA for ; Sun, 14 Jul 2019 22:52:53 +1000 (AEST) Received: from callcc.thunk.org ([66.31.38.53]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id x6ECqQqk015395 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Sun, 14 Jul 2019 08:52:26 -0400 Received: by callcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 0D542420036; Sun, 14 Jul 2019 08:52:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2019 08:52:25 -0400 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: ecarp@lsisoft.net Message-ID: <20190714125225.GA29912@mit.edu> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.10.1 (2018-07-13) Subject: Re: [TUHS] Happy birthday, 386BSD! X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Sun, Jul 14, 2019 at 12:13:35AM -0700, Ed Carp wrote: > On Sat, 13 Jul 2019, space aliens made Dave Horsfall write: > > > 386BSD was released on this day in 1992, when William and Lynne Jolitz > > started the Open Source movement; well, that's what my notes say, and > > Not really. Bill and Lynne kept very tight control over releases - the word > "open" didn't really apply to 386BSD, and there were many Open Source > projects well under way before 386BSD wasy even conceived. > > Under Linux, the process was a lot more "open", even democratic. One of the > reasons I abandoned 386BSD early on and started working on Linux was because > I (as well as many others) were very frustrated at the complete contol the > Jolitz's exnercised over 386BSD, and limited releases to one every six months > - much slower than was generally considered to be acceptable for the long > list of bugs and fixes in the pipeline. +1 The term "Open Source" dates to 1998, so saying the movement dates back to 1992 is at best historical revisionism. If what you mean is the concept of distributed development, enabled by the internet, and you don't want to count Linux (which started in 1991), I'd point you at perl from the late 80's. Larry Wall was extremely welcoming to enhancements from people that he didn't know except for the fact that they sent patches that passed technical muster. Even if that person was a random undergraduate systems programmer at MIT... Both Larry Wall and Linus Torvalds subscribed to the "release early, release often" methodology --- which was especially important in the days before distibuted source control systems. If you want to encourage contributors, it's really important that they get positive feedback very quickly. So feedback on proposed patches, and letting people see their contributions show up in a new release is super-important. And that means releases on a schedule measured in days or weeks, and not months. So if anything, I'd claim that 386BSD was a great, early example of an open source anti-pattern. Releases every six months might be fine if you're using a physical distribution medium, like CD-ROM's, but one of the key aspects of the "Open Source movement" was the distributed development methodologies that was enabled by the 'Net. - Ted P.S. There are plenty of other comp.sources.unix and comp.sources.misc "open source" projects from the 1980's, but Perl is one of the much larger, much more visible, and with a very large contributor base, which makes it a very early project that looks like what many people think of when they say "a successful Open Source project" today.