[TUHS] BSD/OS

[TUHS] BSD/OS

[Kevin Bowling]

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I have been playing around a bit with this in VirtualBox.

Maybe due to the backing company, I had assumed it was a commercial FreeBSD
variant.  But looking a bit harder, it seems like it was a distinct strain
of 386bsd like NetBSD and FreeBSD.  There seems to be scant information
about it online.  Does anyone know if its story is told somewhere?

Regards,
Kevin

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Warner Losh]

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On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 5:40 PM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com>
wrote:

> I have been playing around a bit with this in VirtualBox.
>
> Maybe due to the backing company, I had assumed it was a commercial
> FreeBSD variant.  But looking a bit harder, it seems like it was a distinct
> strain of 386bsd like NetBSD and FreeBSD.  There seems to be scant
> information about it online.  Does anyone know if its story is told
> somewhere?
>

Wasn't this from BSDi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD/OS It wasn't a
commercial version of 386bsd, per se, but based on a porting to the PC work
Jolitz had done prior to 386BSD.  They shared a common (very recent)
ancestor. And there was much drama around it all.

Or is this something else?

Warner

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Kevin Bowling]

On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 4:44 PM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 5:40 PM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
>>
>> I have been playing around a bit with this in VirtualBox.
>>
>> Maybe due to the backing company, I had assumed it was a commercial FreeBSD variant.  But looking a bit harder, it seems like it was a distinct strain of 386bsd like NetBSD and FreeBSD.  There seems to be scant information about it online.  Does anyone know if its story is told somewhere?
>
>
> Wasn't this from BSDi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD/OS It wasn't a commercial version of 386bsd, per se, but based on a porting to the PC work Jolitz had done prior to 386BSD.  They shared a common (very recent) ancestor. And there was much drama around it all.

Yeah you got it, this is the BSDi product that was previously called
BSD/386 and eventually wound down at WindRiver.

What I've gleaned so far is like you said, some of the 386bsd patch
set and then maybe the 4.4-lite refresh along the way.  The final
version has FreeBSD's CAM.

https://gunkies.org/wiki/BSD/386 and the parent page on seem to
suggest it originated off Net/2 directly.

Very hard to find a cohesive story for some reason.

> Or is this something else?
>
> Warner

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[John Levine]

It appears that Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> said:
>Wasn't this from BSDi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD/OS It wasn't a
>commercial version of 386bsd, per se, but based on a porting to the PC work
>Jolitz had done prior to 386BSD.  They shared a common (very recent)
>ancestor. And there was much drama around it all.

Yes, it was a commercial peer of the other BSD forks. I used it for
quite a while until the company was sold and refocused on embedded
applications. It wasn't hard to move to FreeBSD which is what I am
still using.

When I moved tp upstate NY in 1996, I wanted an Internet connection
for my work. So I called up the local independent telco who told me
they had just rolled out their new Internet service. Great, can I have
a T-1? Dunno, have to ask the boss.

They called back and said there was no techncial problem but nobody in
my small town had ever ordered a T-1 before so they had to get a T-1
rate added to the tariff they had on file with the state. That took
about a month, after which a guy in suspenders with a ladder showed
up, ran the two-pair wire, he and I looked at the manual for the
CSU/DSU I'd gotten, wired it up, and whaddaya know it worked. (It was
worth the wait, their price was half what Verizon would have charged
in Ithaca.)

Well, that part worked.  They hadn't anticipated leased line customers
who wanted a /24 (which they just let me use, this was 30 years ago)
so they added me to their internal OSPF network.  I was running BSDI
on a cheap 386 box, set everything up, and oh crud, the routing
daemon didn't work due to bugs.

I contacted BSDI and, in one of those things that would be too strange
to be fiction, we found that the guy at Cornell who'd written the open
source routing daemon now worked for BSDI and lived about 10 minutes
from me. I called him up, he sent me some patches, and everything
worked. I could not have asked for better software support.  

He and I are still the local nerds which you can tell because his
car's license plate says TCP-IP and mine says IPV4.

R's,
John

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Larry McVoy]

On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 05:44:20PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 5:40???PM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > I have been playing around a bit with this in VirtualBox.
> >
> > Maybe due to the backing company, I had assumed it was a commercial
> > FreeBSD variant.  But looking a bit harder, it seems like it was a distinct
> > strain of 386bsd like NetBSD and FreeBSD.  There seems to be scant
> > information about it online.  Does anyone know if its story is told
> > somewhere?
> >
> 
> Wasn't this from BSDi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD/OS It wasn't a
> commercial version of 386bsd, per se, but based on a porting to the PC work
> Jolitz had done prior to 386BSD.  They shared a common (very recent)
> ancestor. And there was much drama around it all.

Pretty sure this was BSDi and had a bunch of the CSRG people trying to
make money off of BSD.  There was much drama and it didn't go anywhere.
Sun was pretty much the only company to make money off of BSD and it
was because SunOS was famously known as "a bug fixed, and completed,
BSD".  wnj had the mmap docs somewhere, he had the idea, Sun actually
implemented it and realized that a page cache and a buffer cache are 
two caches of the same thing (read/write went through the buffer cache,
mmap went through the page cache) and unified them.  Killed the buffer
cache except for directories and maybe inodes.  Took the other Unix
implementations at least a decade to catch up.  Ask me about HP-UX.

BSDi never did anything like what Sun did but they wanted the money,
hence the drama.

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Chet Ramey via TUHS]

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On 8/30/24 10:10 PM, John Levine wrote:

> I contacted BSDI and, in one of those things that would be too strange
> to be fiction, we found that the guy at Cornell who'd written the open
> source routing daemon now worked for BSDI and lived about 10 minutes
> from me. I called him up, he sent me some patches, and everything
> worked. I could not have asked for better software support.

Wasn't that Jeff Honig and gated? IIRC, he did some of the work I
incorporated into the custom 4.3 BSD I ran on my IBM RT during the
mid-90s.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[John R Levine]

On Sat, 31 Aug 2024, Chet Ramey wrote:
>> source routing daemon now worked for BSDI and lived about 10 minutes
>> from me. I called him up, he sent me some patches, and everything
>> worked. I could not have asked for better software support.
>
> Wasn't that Jeff Honig and gated? IIRC, he did some of the work I
> incorporated into the custom 4.3 BSD I ran on my IBM RT during the
> mid-90s.

Yup.  That's his TCP-IP license plate.

Small world department: I did a lot of the architecture and some of 
the programming AIX, the Unix you did not run your RT.

R's,
John

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Chet Ramey via TUHS]

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On 8/31/24 7:20 PM, John R Levine wrote:
> AIX, the Unix you did not run your RT.

Oh, we tried. BSD just worked better for us.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Jim Carpenter]

On Sat, Sep 7, 2024 at 6:53 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
> I have CDs of 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0.  I had 1.x, but I can't put my hands
> on them right now.  Maybe they were on QIC tape, in which case they're
> probably unrecoverable.  I also have source trees for 4.0, 4.1 and the
> development version of 5.0 which I used to write the code for FreeBSD.

That's a good collection there. A generous list member has shared 1.0 with me.

I have looked at the 5.1 Contrib CD. The "PACKAGES" directory has had
its first block overwritten with a directory(?) block from HFS(?).
Some sort of memory corruption happened. However, I've recovered every
file. They are either short, readable text or gzipped tarballs with
MD5 files. Everything checks out fine. I'll be creating a new iso and
making it available.

But assuming that most of the other BSD/OS images are from the same
source, we can't trust that any are okay. :(

> What's the legal situation about distributing them?

Only some lawyer somewhere might someday be able to answer that to
some extent. I'd be surprised if whoever the current IP owner is knows
that they are.

Jim

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Wesley Parish]

On 8/09/24 14:19, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 07, 2024 at 05:52:29PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
>> On Sat, Sep 7, 2024, 4:53???PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wednesday,  4 September 2024 at  4:49:47 -0400, Jim Carpenter wrote:
>>>> On Sun, Sep 1, 2024 at 3:33???AM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>> Many of the BSD/OS versions have disc images on archive.org or
>>>>> osarchive.org where the 7.4GB rar file was helpful for getting a 5.1
>>>>> contrib disc since the archive.org one is corrupt.  So the binaries
>>>>> and source seem fairly well preserved for future explorers.
>>>> Check again. The contrib image in the 7.4GB rar has the same hash as
>>>> the one on archive.org and elsewhere. I have no idea if the install
>>>> image is 100% correct. Hell, it's possible every image in that archive
>>>> and on archive.org is bad. I just don't know.
>>>>
>>>> So if anybody has any BSD/OS CDs please speak up.
>>> I have CDs of 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0.  I had 1.x, but I can't put my hands
>>> on them right now.  Maybe they were on QIC tape, in which case they're
>>> probably unrecoverable.  I also have source trees for 4.0, 4.1 and the
>>> development version of 5.0 which I used to write the code for FreeBSD.
>>>
>>> What's the legal situation about distributing them?
>>>
>> No one is left to go after you for diing so. Wind river left bsdi support
>> behind years ago....
> My personal opinion on these old operating systems is don't set up a store
> and try make money from it and you are golden.  Don't set up a website and
> say "Get Unix for free here".
>
> It's sort of like dirt where I live.  Technically, you can't move more than
> 5 yards without a permit.  Yet people do it all the time, they just don't
> advertise it.
>
> And no offense to the ancient Unix versions but I'm not sure anyone really
> wants them for anything other than history.  Nor should they.  I'm a SunOS
> guy, huge fan, it's where I learned how to be a kernel guy.  Would I want
> to run that rather than Linux today?  Oh, hell, no.  Everything works on
> Linux, graphics, sound, video, email attachments, so much of that was a
> mess on SunOS and a bigger mess on other systems, including peers of
> SunOS.
>
> If there was value in BSD/OS the lawyers would come after you but there is
> no value other than history.

I wish there was some way we could get the remnants of the Unix(tm) 
companies together for long enough to sign something along the lines of 
the "Statement Regarding Research Unix Editions 8, 9, and 10"

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dan_Cross_v8/

"Statement Regarding Research Unix Editions 8, 9, and 10 Alcatel-Lucent 
USA Inc. (“ALU-USA”), on behalf of itself and Nokia Bell Laboratories 
agrees, to the extent of its ability to do so, that it will not assert 
its copyright rights with respect to any non-commercial copying, 
distribution, performance, display or creation of derivative works of 
Research Unix®1 Editions 8, 9, and 10. The foregoing does not (i) 
transfer ownership of, or relinquish any, intellectual property rights 
(including patent rights) of Nokia Corporation, ALU-USA or any of their 
affiliates, (ii) grant a license to any patent, patent application, or 
trademark of Nokia Corporation, ALU-USA. or any of their affiliates, 
(iii) grant any third-party rights or licenses, or (iv) grant any rights 
for commercial purposes. Neither ALU-USA. nor Nokia Bell Laboratories 
will furnish or provided support for Research Unix Editions 8, 9, and 
10, and make no warranties or representations hereunder, including but 
not limited to any warranty or representation that Research Unix 
Editions 8, 9, and 10 does not infringe any third party intellectual 
property rights or that Research Unix Editions 8, 9, and 10 is fit for 
any particular purpose."

for their various versions of Unix that are no longer in development but 
still have historical interest for the rest of us.

Wesley Parish

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Larry McVoy]

On Sat, Sep 07, 2024 at 05:52:29PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 7, 2024, 4:53???PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Wednesday,  4 September 2024 at  4:49:47 -0400, Jim Carpenter wrote:
> > > On Sun, Sep 1, 2024 at 3:33???AM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com>
> > wrote:
> > >> Many of the BSD/OS versions have disc images on archive.org or
> > >> osarchive.org where the 7.4GB rar file was helpful for getting a 5.1
> > >> contrib disc since the archive.org one is corrupt.  So the binaries
> > >> and source seem fairly well preserved for future explorers.
> > >
> > > Check again. The contrib image in the 7.4GB rar has the same hash as
> > > the one on archive.org and elsewhere. I have no idea if the install
> > > image is 100% correct. Hell, it's possible every image in that archive
> > > and on archive.org is bad. I just don't know.
> > >
> > > So if anybody has any BSD/OS CDs please speak up.
> >
> > I have CDs of 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0.  I had 1.x, but I can't put my hands
> > on them right now.  Maybe they were on QIC tape, in which case they're
> > probably unrecoverable.  I also have source trees for 4.0, 4.1 and the
> > development version of 5.0 which I used to write the code for FreeBSD.
> >
> > What's the legal situation about distributing them?
> >
> 
> No one is left to go after you for diing so. Wind river left bsdi support
> behind years ago....

My personal opinion on these old operating systems is don't set up a store
and try make money from it and you are golden.  Don't set up a website and
say "Get Unix for free here".

It's sort of like dirt where I live.  Technically, you can't move more than
5 yards without a permit.  Yet people do it all the time, they just don't
advertise it.

And no offense to the ancient Unix versions but I'm not sure anyone really
wants them for anything other than history.  Nor should they.  I'm a SunOS
guy, huge fan, it's where I learned how to be a kernel guy.  Would I want 
to run that rather than Linux today?  Oh, hell, no.  Everything works on
Linux, graphics, sound, video, email attachments, so much of that was a
mess on SunOS and a bigger mess on other systems, including peers of 
SunOS.

If there was value in BSD/OS the lawyers would come after you but there is
no value other than history.

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[segaloco via TUHS]

On Saturday, September 7th, 2024 at 4:52 PM, Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> On Sat, Sep 7, 2024, 4:53 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Wednesday, 4 September 2024 at 4:49:47 -0400, Jim Carpenter wrote:
> > > On Sun, Sep 1, 2024 at 3:33 AM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
> > >> Many of the BSD/OS versions have disc images on archive.org or
> > >> osarchive.org where the 7.4GB rar file was helpful for getting a 5.1
> > >> contrib disc since the archive.org one is corrupt. So the binaries
> > >> and source seem fairly well preserved for future explorers.
> > >
> > > Check again. The contrib image in the 7.4GB rar has the same hash as
> > > the one on archive.org and elsewhere. I have no idea if the install
> > > image is 100% correct. Hell, it's possible every image in that archive
> > > and on archive.org is bad. I just don't know.
> > >
> > > So if anybody has any BSD/OS CDs please speak up.
> > 
> > I have CDs of 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0. I had 1.x, but I can't put my hands
> > on them right now. Maybe they were on QIC tape, in which case they're
> > probably unrecoverable. I also have source trees for 4.0, 4.1 and the
> > development version of 5.0 which I used to write the code for FreeBSD.
> > 
> > What's the legal situation about distributing them?
> 
> 
> No one is left to go after you for diing so. Wind river left bsdi support behind years ago....
> 
> But that's a slippery slope that depends on how you feel about ancient abandonware...
> 
> Warner
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Greg
> > --
> > Sent from my desktop computer.
> > Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key.
> > See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> > This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
> > reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php

IANAL but a tiny bit of CYA can be added to the process by drafting a clear disclaimer that the materials are of currently-unknown copyright last known to be held by <company XYZ> and that all questions of license to *use* the code for anything you cannot affirmatively answer.  For instance with the disassemblies of old console games I produce, which I've found no EULA stating disassembly is verboten, I usually add something to the effect of:

I am not in a position to provide licensing terms on this material I have preserved.  I myself will not lay restrictions on what you can and can't do but I also do not have the authority to make any affirmative claims on the matter.

Additionally making it clear in your distribution you are receptive to claims by proven copyright holders to C and D actions related to distribution shows good faith, if someone *does* take issue, hopefully they'll see that and contact you realizing you are interested in balancing preservation with respect to copyrights.

I repeat though, I've not once set foot in the soul crushing environment that is the legal profession, so if you want to play an air tight game, consider retaining legal counsel.

- Matt G.

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Warner Losh]

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On Sat, Sep 7, 2024, 4:53 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday,  4 September 2024 at  4:49:47 -0400, Jim Carpenter wrote:
> > On Sun, Sep 1, 2024 at 3:33 AM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com>
> wrote:
> >> Many of the BSD/OS versions have disc images on archive.org or
> >> osarchive.org where the 7.4GB rar file was helpful for getting a 5.1
> >> contrib disc since the archive.org one is corrupt.  So the binaries
> >> and source seem fairly well preserved for future explorers.
> >
> > Check again. The contrib image in the 7.4GB rar has the same hash as
> > the one on archive.org and elsewhere. I have no idea if the install
> > image is 100% correct. Hell, it's possible every image in that archive
> > and on archive.org is bad. I just don't know.
> >
> > So if anybody has any BSD/OS CDs please speak up.
>
> I have CDs of 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0.  I had 1.x, but I can't put my hands
> on them right now.  Maybe they were on QIC tape, in which case they're
> probably unrecoverable.  I also have source trees for 4.0, 4.1 and the
> development version of 5.0 which I used to write the code for FreeBSD.
>
> What's the legal situation about distributing them?
>

No one is left to go after you for diing so. Wind river left bsdi support
behind years ago....

But that's a slippery slope that depends on how you feel about ancient
abandonware...

Warner



Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
> reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php
>

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

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On Wednesday,  4 September 2024 at  4:49:47 -0400, Jim Carpenter wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 1, 2024 at 3:33 AM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
>> Many of the BSD/OS versions have disc images on archive.org or
>> osarchive.org where the 7.4GB rar file was helpful for getting a 5.1
>> contrib disc since the archive.org one is corrupt.  So the binaries
>> and source seem fairly well preserved for future explorers.
>
> Check again. The contrib image in the 7.4GB rar has the same hash as
> the one on archive.org and elsewhere. I have no idea if the install
> image is 100% correct. Hell, it's possible every image in that archive
> and on archive.org is bad. I just don't know.
>
> So if anybody has any BSD/OS CDs please speak up.

I have CDs of 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0.  I had 1.x, but I can't put my hands
on them right now.  Maybe they were on QIC tape, in which case they're
probably unrecoverable.  I also have source trees for 4.0, 4.1 and the
development version of 5.0 which I used to write the code for FreeBSD.

What's the legal situation about distributing them?

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Chet Ramey via TUHS]

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On 8/31/24 10:14 PM, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:

> Someday I need to finish my book where I did over 80 email, phone, or
> in-person interviews.

I'd read that book.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Jim Carpenter]

On Sun, Sep 1, 2024 at 3:33 AM Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> wrote:
> Many of the BSD/OS versions have disc images on archive.org or
> osarchive.org where the 7.4GB rar file was helpful for getting a 5.1
> contrib disc since the archive.org one is corrupt.  So the binaries
> and source seem fairly well preserved for future explorers.

Check again. The contrib image in the 7.4GB rar has the same hash as
the one on archive.org and elsewhere. I have no idea if the install
image is 100% correct. Hell, it's possible every image in that archive
and on archive.org is bad. I just don't know.

So if anybody has any BSD/OS CDs please speak up.

Jim

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)]

Greg 'groggy' Lehey writes:

> > I would be pretty confident in saying BSD/OS is _not_ a FreeBSD
> > derivative but a first order derivative of net/2
>
> Yes, I think so.  I can't think of anything else that could have been
> in between.

In the mid 90s I was at the U of Northern British Columbia.  In
late 1992 or early 93 we acqired a site licence for BSD/386 (with
source) for the U.  IIRC it was mosly Net/2 at the start, with
some proprietary BSDi kernel (and other) enhancements.

When the campus opened in 1994 we had it deployed on > 100
student PC workstations, running in a mostly "dataless"
configuration (in Sun speak).  It worked very well, exept
for the X server, which regularly dumped core.  I was more
that a little surprised (and annoyed) to one day discover
every one of those core dump was being emailed back to the
mother ship.  I forget who I takled to as BSDI about this,
but they mentioned they were even more annoyed than us
and had installed a custom sendmail rule to direct those
messages into the bit bucket.

I also recall taking my first run at FreeBSD in the fall
of 1994.  Release 1.05 sticks in my mind for some reason.
After leaving the U, transitioning to FreeBSD was seamless.

Towards the end of the 90s I was supporting a commercial
IMAP server.  I remember us entering into an agreement with
BSDi to port and sell our code on their platform.  Shortly
after sealing that deal they were bought by Wind River, and
their layers immediately got to work trying to undo that deal.
Fuzzy memory says this was circa 2000.

Apart from this, though, In 1993 I was still trying to figure
out what UNIX (if any) we were going to run on the PCs in
the student labs (the campus didn't open until 94).  I
had been eyeing up Sun's 386 offering, since I had a
lot of experience with SunOS.  I was at an Interop that
year and tried pinning down one of the Sun sales rep's
to talk about site licensing options.  He could not
have made it anymore more clear that anyone speaking
of SunOS/Solaris on 386 should piss off!  Immediately!

Needless to say, BSDi won that deal.

--lyndon

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Paul Winalski]

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On Sun, Sep 1, 2024 at 11:33 PM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:

> Plus, Novell knew about these licenses, so the principle of latches would
> likely preclude any legal action as well... Or at least make it more
> difficult
> to do so. So even if the copyright didn't transfer, and the rights to
> sublicense
> were somehow exceeded their grant and someone wanted to make trouble,
> it would be a very tricky case.
>
> For the benefit of those of us who don't know legal jargon, "laches" is a
legal principle whereby a court can deny relief to a claimant with an
otherwise valid claim when the party bringing the claim unreasonably
delayed asserting the claim to the detriment of the opposing party.

In this case, Novell knew about the SCO and Caldera "archaic Unix" licenses
being issued but did nothing at the time.   Were they to try to sue years
later to block use of those licenses, the party being sued could invoke the
principle of laches and claim that Novell knew about the licenses, did
nothing at the time, and it's now too late to bring the claim before the
court.

-Paul W.

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Warner Losh]

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On Sun, Sep 1, 2024 at 6:13 PM Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co> wrote:

> On Mon, 2 Sep 2024, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote:
>
> > The Caldera license is somewhat problematic. My take on the situation is
> that
> > old SCO had the rights to issue source code and binary licenses, even
> though
> > they didn't actually have the copyright to the code (at the time Novell
> did).
>
> That's my take as well.
>
> Caldera would assumedly have inherited these rights when they bought old
> SCO.  But as you said, they didn't have the copyright - and the copyright
> notice and the Third Clause on the Caldera license require a copyright
> attribution to them.
>

Plus, Novell knew about these licenses, so the principle of latches would
likely preclude any legal action as well... Or at least make it more
difficult
to do so. So even if the copyright didn't transfer, and the rights to
sublicense
were somehow exceeded their grant and someone wanted to make trouble,
it would be a very tricky case.

The Caldera license does include 32V as well as V7, so the 2BSD line, which
is based heavily on V7 unix + bug fixes and big code flows from 4.2BSD,
4.3BSD
and 4.4BSD, is also a bit in limbo.

My stance is: While we can't be 100% sure on 32V, it's probably the
> _safest_ place to start, if one were to pinch from pre-S3 Unix.  If Xinuos
> or another claimant were to come at someone over it, it would put the
> "invalid copyright" theory to the test.
>

Yes. Xinuos showed up at a FreeBSD vendor summit some years ago when
they launched their latest thing, based on FreeBSD. The story at the time
was they were super keen on putting the past in the past.

I'd say that either there's no copyright at all on 32V (since it was
authored
before the US was signatory to the Berne Convention, and since it relied
on trade secret for its protection and since it was distributed without the
proper notice for hat) or if there is, Caldera license covers it. And since
the
ruling was in 2010 and nobody has shown up to contest the Caldera
license, it would be tricky to to show up now that the cat is substantailly
out of the bag. One might speculate that the Caldera license might
not be valid after that, the matter hasn't been litigated and IANAL, but
since we can only speculate whether or not Caldera exceeded its
rights in granting the license.  I think that one relying on the Caldera
license
to govern their actions would have a good faith defense should the situation
change, but I'm not sure how much that would mitigate the consequences.

But if Xinuos don't own the copyright, then it's the residual of Novell,
which
according to Wikipedia:

The company was an independent corporate entity until it was acquired as a
wholly owned subsidiary by The Attachmate Group in 2011. Attachmate was
subsequently acquired in 2014 by Micro Focus International which was
acquired in turn by OpenText in 2023. Novell products and technologies are
now integrated within various OpenText divisions.

So maybe OpenText owns Unix. There were efforts to clear things up with
MicroFocus before Covid, that last I heard had gone nowhere. There's also
this post, which I ran into 3 or so years ago...

https://community.microfocus.com/welcome_to_the_community/f/over-the-back-fence/168007/micro-focus-s-stance-on-ancient-unix-licensing

But OpenText sold its AMC business to Rocket Software May 1, 2024, the
press release in parts ays:
"Closing the acquisition of the Application Modernization and Connectivity
(AMC) business of OpenText, formerly part of Micro Focus, Rocket Software
now offers customers"
So maybe Rocket Software owns Unix now? Or maybe OpenText retaineed it.

https://www.rocketsoftware.com/news/rocket-software-closes-2275b-acquisition-opentexts-application-modernization-and-connectivity

So the plot thickens, eh?


> Anyway, copyright on the actual AT&T code is a rat's nest and I actually
> started trying to come up with an analog so as to avoid getting finked
> over the code.


Yes. At best, a researcher could get by with some kind of 'fair use'
defense, and anybody not basing a System Vish product not on OpenIndian
(and its kin) would be significantly exposed...

Warner

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Steve Nickolas]

On Mon, 2 Sep 2024, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote:

> The Caldera license is somewhat problematic. My take on the situation is that 
> old SCO had the rights to issue source code and binary licenses, even though 
> they didn't actually have the copyright to the code (at the time Novell did).

That's my take as well.

Caldera would assumedly have inherited these rights when they bought old 
SCO.  But as you said, they didn't have the copyright - and the copyright 
notice and the Third Clause on the Caldera license require a copyright 
attribution to them.

My stance is: While we can't be 100% sure on 32V, it's probably the 
_safest_ place to start, if one were to pinch from pre-S3 Unix.  If Xinuos 
or another claimant were to come at someone over it, it would put the 
"invalid copyright" theory to the test.

Anyway, copyright on the actual AT&T code is a rat's nest and I actually 
started trying to come up with an analog so as to avoid getting finked 
over the code.

-uso.

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Warren Toomey via TUHS]

On 2/9/24 09:24, Steve Nickolas wrote:
>
> Am I confabulating an incident where TSG's people were trying to claim 
> that "a group of hackers called Caldera International" were behind the 
> license and that it never happened (despite reality) ? I could swear I 
> recall that happening but I can't find any evidence.
>
That I haven't heard of, but it is possible.

The Caldera license is somewhat problematic. My take on the situation is 
that old SCO had the rights to issue source code and binary licenses, 
even though they didn't actually have the copyright to the code (at the 
time Novell did). Old SCO had the right to create the US$100 "Ancient 
UNIX" license. And when old SCO sold the licensing rights to Caldera, 
Caldera had the right to grant the free license at 
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf.

Cheers, Warren

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Steve Nickolas]

On Mon, 2 Sep 2024, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote:

> Absolutely true, but there was a bit more work needed than just the 
> preliminary ruling. In parallel, the TUHS folk were petitioning old SCO (not 
> TSG) to release the ancient Unixes under a BSD-style license: 
> https://www.tuhs.org/PUPS/petition.html. Eventually old SCO agreed to a 
> BSD-style hobbyist license which cost US$100: 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20010603053221/http://www.sco.com/offers/ancient.html. 
> Some details of the process are here: https://www.tuhs.org/PUPS/pstatus.html.
>
> Then a while later, Caldera (who had bought the Unix licensing from old SCO) 
> offered their $0 license: https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf.
>
> I want to give a shout out to Dion Johnson who was the driving force at old 
> SCO that finally got them to agree to putting the ancient Unixes under a 
> BSD-style license.

Am I confabulating an incident where TSG's people were trying to claim 
that "a group of hackers called Caldera International" were behind the 
license and that it never happened (despite reality) ?  I could swear I 
recall that happening but I can't find any evidence.

-uso.

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Warren Toomey via TUHS]

On 1/9/24 21:59, Rich Salz wrote:
> The phone number 1-800-ITS-UNIX, didn't help.  But ATT sued the 
> Regents of California first because of UCBs net releases. And while 
> there were many of the same principles, the two lawsuits were different.

When Dennis Ritchie was still with us, he cached many of the legal 
documents from both lawsuits on his home page: 
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/bsdi/bsdisuit.html

Cheers, Warren

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Warren Toomey via TUHS]

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On 2/9/24 00:49, Warner Losh wrote:
>
>
> Trade Secret is one of the big reasons there was a preliminary ruling 
> in the UCB/ATT lawsuit that 32V had lost its copyright protection. It 
> had been distributed outside of AT&T to a large degree without the 
> Trade Secret warning. It's why all the 4BSD releases are publicly 
> available now.
>
Absolutely true, but there was a bit more work needed than just the 
preliminary ruling. In parallel, the TUHS folk were petitioning old SCO 
(not TSG) to release the ancient Unixes under a BSD-style license: 
https://www.tuhs.org/PUPS/petition.html. Eventually old SCO agreed to a 
BSD-style hobbyist license which cost US$100: 
https://web.archive.org/web/20010603053221/http://www.sco.com/offers/ancient.html. 
Some details of the process are here: 
https://www.tuhs.org/PUPS/pstatus.html.

Then a while later, Caldera (who had bought the Unix licensing from old 
SCO) offered their $0 license: 
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf.

I want to give a shout out to Dion Johnson who was the driving force at 
old SCO that finally got them to agree to putting the ancient Unixes 
under a BSD-style license.

Cheers, Warren


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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Warner Losh]

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On Sun, Sep 1, 2024 at 5:59 AM Rich Salz <rich.salz@gmail.com> wrote:

> The phone number 1-800-ITS-UNIX, didn't help.  But ATT sued the Regents of
> California first because of UCBs net releases. And while there were many of
> the same principles, the two lawsuits were different.
>
> At&t did not have much choice. Unix was protected by trade secret, and
> once it was available, the trade secret was gone. Rick Adams asked a lawyer
> if somebody posted it to Usenet by uploading it from a phone booth. Would
> happen, The lawyers gulped and said it's available now.
>

Trade Secret is one of the big reasons there was a preliminary ruling in
the UCB/ATT lawsuit that 32V had lost its copyright protection. It had been
distributed outside of AT&T to a large degree without the Trade Secret
warning. It's why all the 4BSD releases are publicly available now.

Warner

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Rich Salz]

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The phone number 1-800-ITS-UNIX, didn't help.  But ATT sued the Regents of
California first because of UCBs net releases. And while there were many of
the same principles, the two lawsuits were different.

At&t did not have much choice. Unix was protected by trade secret, and once
it was available, the trade secret was gone. Rick Adams asked a lawyer if
somebody posted it to Usenet by uploading it from a phone booth. Would
happen, The lawyers gulped and said it's available now.

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Kevin Bowling]

On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 11:49 AM Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> wrote:
>
> On 8/31/24 12:40 AM, Kevin Bowling wrote:
>
> > BSD/386 seems to be a first order derivative of net/2.  Source:
> > https://ia902809.us.archive.org/25/items/BSD3861.1CD/bsd1.1-manual.pdf.
> > To what degree that it incorporated anything from 386bsd would
> > probably rely on first hand accounts.
>
> We ran all of these at CWRU for many years. The mail system, DNS, and
> other services all ran on BSD/OS machines. Nice, clean distribution
> will full source code and excellent support.
>
> > I don't have much to go on for BSD/OS 2.x but it seems like it was
> > about rebasing on 4.4-lite if we look at the family tree
> > http://www.netbsd.org/about/history.html
>
> This is about where we got seriously into the game. I probably still have
> the source for it somewhere.
>
> I did a bunch of development on that version.
>
> > Not much sourcing to go on for BSD/OS 3.x.
>
> Probably have the source for this, too.

By sourcing I was meaning finding primary documentation for my
summary.  I am only pointing this out to make a related point that is
worth recording:  BSD/OS always seemed to ship with the source code,
and it was "easy" to build unlike some commercial UNIX where the
source was provided ceremonially and had complicated build processes.

In that respect, BSD/OS is a "source provided" commercial program and
this seems to be making a reappearance lately as some companies are
deciding whether or not they still like open source licenses or
struggling to meet inflated expectations of their fundraising.

Many of the BSD/OS versions have disc images on archive.org or
osarchive.org where the 7.4GB rar file was helpful for getting a 5.1
contrib disc since the archive.org one is corrupt.  So the binaries
and source seem fairly well preserved for future explorers.

> >
> > Luckily for BSD/OS 4.x we get some release notes:
> > * https://ia600908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22/items/bsdos-4.01/bsdos-4.01-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf
> > * https://ia800900.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/21/items/bsdos-4.1/bsdos-4.1-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf
>
> We definitely used these versions heavily, up through the mid-aughts.
>
> > For 5.x I again don't have much to go on
>
> I think I have a box with this distribution in my office. That was
> after I got out of the server game.
>
> >
> > And what I was initially after, a comparative report on how BSD/OS
> > related to others:
> > https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix99/full_papers/metz/metz.pdf
> > (page 6)
> >
> > I would be pretty confident in saying BSD/OS is _not_ a FreeBSD
> > derivative but a first order derivative of net/2 that eventually wound
> > up looking a little bit like FreeBSD in its later years.
>
> Yep.
>
> BSDI employed a bunch of BSD heavy hitters.
>
> Mike Karels
> Keith Bostic
> Donn Seeley
> Chris Torek
> Rob Kolstad (President)
> Jeff Honig
> Bill Jolitz
> Kirk McKusick (one of the founders)
>
> They were a pleasure to work with.
>
> Chet
>
> --
> ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
>                  ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
> Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[arnold]

Chet Ramey via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

> BSDI employed a bunch of BSD heavy hitters.
>
> Mike Karels
> Keith Bostic
> Donn Seeley
> Chris Torek
> Rob Kolstad (President)
> Jeff Honig
> Bill Jolitz
> Kirk McKusick (one of the founders)

What nobody has mentioned so far (at least as far as I've gotten in
my email) is that they were the ones who woke the sleeping giant,
by advertising their product as "UNIX" and with a phone number 1-800-ITS-UNIX.

That started off all the lawsuits. At least, that is how I remember it.

Arnold

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Wesley Parish]

Certainly, that was the impression I got from reading the 386BSD 
text/help files that came with the 386BSD CDROM Dr Dobbs were selling. 
The 386BSD was Net/2 ported to the 386.

Wesley Parish

On 1/09/24 01:07, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>      > From: Noel Chiappa
>
>      > Was there ever actually a '386/BSD'?
>
> I decided (for not particular reason) to take a quick read through Marshall
> Kirk McKusick's "Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix From AT&T-Owned to Freely
> Redistributable":
>
>    https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/kirkmck.html
>
> and he refers to Jolitz's system as "386/BSD" (apparently incorrectly). (So
> there's a lesson there; even people who '_were_ there' can occasionally get it
> wrong - something that professional historians are well aware of. I have a
> funny story of my learning that lesson, here:
>
>    http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/nontech/tmlotus.html
>
> in a totally different technical area.)
>
> I have yet to see a _scan_ of contemporary documentation (I believe nothing
> that isn't a contemporary _physical artifact_) that confirms it was actually
> named "386BSD", but that does seem to be the name as given in the Dr. Dobbs
> series on it. That series confirms that it was based directly on the 'Net/2'
> BSD release (although 'diff's on the sources are probably the most reliable
> proof).
>
> 	Noel

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Jeremy C. Reed]

On Sat, 31 Aug 2024, Noel Chiappa wrote:

> and he refers to Jolitz's system as "386/BSD" (apparently incorrectly). (So
> there's a lesson there; even people who '_were_ there' can occasionally get it
> wrong - something that professional historians are well aware of. I have a
> funny story of my learning that lesson, here:
> 
>   http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/nontech/tmlotus.html
> 
> in a totally different technical area.)
> 
> I have yet to see a _scan_ of contemporary documentation (I believe nothing
> that isn't a contemporary _physical artifact_) that confirms it was actually
> named "386BSD", but that does seem to be the name as given in the Dr. Dobbs
> series on it. That series confirms that it was based directly on the 'Net/2'
> BSD release (although 'diff's on the sources are probably the most reliable
> proof).

Is this "apparently incorrectly" about the / slash? As for use 
(regardless of artifact) with / I only see in McKusick's histories and 
one use in the old 386bsd.faq (which uses without slash in all but 
once),

Another mistake was use of "386/BSD" for BSDI's software in the Civil 
Action No.92-1667 AMICUS BRIEF (930107.amicus.txt) where all the other 
legal references were "BSD/386".

Or is this about the 386BSD name itself (without the slash)?

An early mention of it is from 

src/sys/i386/i386/locore.s from net.2

 *      @(#)locore.s    7.3 (Berkeley) 5/13/91
 */


/*
 * locore.s:    4BSD machine support for the Intel 386
 *              Preliminary version
 *              Written by William F. Jolitz, 386BSD Project

and gdb/config/m-i386bsd.h change from him

but I don't know of a physical artifact around then other than the CD 
that came with the magazine.

Does anyone have the CD or print magazines? (Sadly I lost or threw mine 
away in the 1990s. I got the subscription as a Christmas present and 
didn't realize that "BSD" value until near a decade later.)

Someday I need to finish my book where I did over 80 email, phone, or 
in-person interviews.

t1:svn-bsd-history$ wc 386bsd* patchkit.tex lawsuit.tex bsdi* 43bsd-part2.tex  
      87     471    3319 386bsd-part3.tex
     530    3264   23198 386bsd.tex
    1258    7793   52650 patchkit.tex
    3155   21517  137284 lawsuit.tex
     929    5177   36451 bsdi-part2.tex
     499    3477   22738 bsdi.tex
    3879   28436  180396 43bsd-part2.tex
   10337   70135  456036 total

(which is less than a quarter of the story)

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Rik Farrow]

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I was interested in BSDi initially because of the AT&T lawsuit against BSDi
and the University of California Board of Regents. Dumb move, and relevant
only that it suppressed the distribution and use of BSD-based Unix while
Linux took off, while doing nothing good for AT&T.

Rob Kolstad, the CEO of BSDi, told me that they were paying Jolitz to port
the memory management to the 386 architecture, then Jolitz got upset over
the BSD386 version costing money. Some companies needed a commercially
supported BSD, including UUnet, who used BSD for their port concentrators
(where they connected up the dozens of modems used for dial-in access to
the Internet). Rick Adams (UUnet) was involved in the lawsuit because he
wanted a BSD for his business, and supported BSDi financially AFAIK.

Today, FreeBSD does this with support from donations to the FreeBSD
Foundation.

Rik


On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 7:14 AM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 12:38 AM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Saturday, 31 August 2024 at  0:12:16 -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>> >> From: Kevin Bowling
>> >
>> >> https://gunkies.org/wiki/BSD/386 and the parent page on seem to
>> suggest
>> >> it originated off Net/2 directly.
>> >
>> > I wouldn't be putting too much weight on what that page says; most of
>> the
>> > *BSD pages were done by people I don't know well, and who might have
>> gotten
>> > details wrong
>>
>> FWIW, my understanding is also that it came from Net/2.  But it's been
>> a few years now, and I wasn't directly involved.  I just can't think
>> of anything else from which it could have been derived.
>>
>> > (So confusing that '386BSD' is something different from
>> > 'BSD/386'. Was there ever actually a '386/BSD'?)
>>
>> Not to my knowledge.
>>
>> > Someone who knows the early history of all the *BSD systems (as in,
>> > you lived through all that) is welcome, nay invited, to fix any
>> > errors therein.
>>
>> I wouldn't exactly call it early history, but my first exposure to
>> (any kind of) BSD was in March 1992, when I installed BSDI's BSD/386
>> (something like Beta 0.3.1).  You can read more than you want at
>> http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-mar1992.php
>>
>> I subsequently (August 1992) visited Rob Kolstad, who was running the
>> show at the time, and he filled me in.  With his help, what I recall
>> is:
>>
>> - Some time in or before 1991, a company called Berkeley Software
>>   Design Inc (BSDI) was formed with the intention of completing and
>>   marketing a BSD variant.  The system was released as BSD/386 in
>>   1992.
>>
>> - BSDI had a number of prominent BSD people, including Bill Jolitz.
>>   Bill was not in agreement that they should charge money for it, and
>>   as Rob tells me, in December 1991 Bill left the company after
>>   significant altercations, destroying all his work.  He later
>>   released his version, 386BSD.
>>
>
> Yes. They started with net/2. Other accounts have Bill Jolitz bringing some
> preliminary 386 porting work to BSDi and then leaving in a huff over
> charging for it. He released 386BSD based on that work (or a redo of
> that work, I've seen both accounts, not sure which one to believe). He
> released
> them to the world, and then had no ability to manage the project he created
> leading to the patch kit which without a leader fissioned into NetBSD
> and FreeBSD, each with different aims.
>
>
>> - At some later date BSDI released a SPARC port, at which point the
>>   name BSD/386 seemed inappropriate, so they changed it to BSD/OS.  I
>>   have a CD set of release 2.0 labeled BSD/OS.
>>
>> - The last CD set I have is undated, version 3.0, labeled BSDI
>>   Internet Server.  I think it was still called BSD/OS, but I can't be
>>   sure.
>>
>>   Round this time I moved away from BSD/OS, since it cost money, and
>>   FreeBSD seemed to be just as good.
>>
>> - In June 2000 we (FreeBSD) discussed merging the code bases of BSD/OS
>>   and FreeBSD, specifically for SMP improvements.  At the time the
>>   BSD/OS release was 4.x, and we were looking at the 5.0 code.  This
>>   is also the first time where I saw the name written as BSDi;
>>   previously, including all the CDs, it was always BSDI.
>>
>
> There were also a number of items that did get merged into FreeBSD at
> this time. We also looked at the PC Card stack moving over, but I didn't
> have the time to get it working on FreeBSD because significant SMPNG
> work made bringing over the code more difficult and a bigger project than
> I had time for.
>
>
>> On Friday, 30 August 2024 at 21:40:29 -0700, Kevin Bowling wrote:
>> >
>> > BSD/386 seems to be a first order derivative of net/2.  Source:
>> > https://ia902809.us.archive.org/25/items/BSD3861.1CD/bsd1.1-manual.pdf.
>> > To what degree that it incorporated anything from 386bsd would
>> > probably rely on first hand accounts.
>>
>> As mentioned above, not at all.  When the first flaky 386BSD betas
>> were released, BSD/386 was already up and running.
>>
>
> Yes. Jolitz code was in both, but BSDi's BSD/386 was first. There was
> a longer beta for it as well. That code circulated a bit before it was
> officially released. I think this was to attract VC funding for BSDi, but
> that detail is from a half-remembered conversation with Mike Karls and
> Kirk McKusick over beers far too many years ago.
>
>
>> > I don't have much to go on for BSD/OS 2.x but it seems like it was
>> > about rebasing on 4.4-lite if we look at the family tree
>> > http://www.netbsd.org/about/history.html
>>
>> Yes, this would have been one of the results of the AT&T lawsuit.
>> FreeBSD 2.0 was also rebased on 4.4BSD-Lite.
>>
>
> As did NetBSD for 1.0, though they took a different tact: FreeBSD did
> a fresh import into a fresh repo, while NetBSD removed bits incrementally
> until it was clean, but then had issues making their repo public due to the
> settlement with AT&T.
>
> Everybody had to rebase. Nobody could continue to use NET/2 that was using
> it when the lawsuit started. After 4.4-lite came out, there was no real
> reason for
> others to start with net/2, so I'm not aware of anybody else using that
> code for
> a full kernel.
>
>
>> > Luckily for BSD/OS 4.x we get some release notes:
>> > *
>> >
>> https://ia600908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22/items/bsdos-4.01/bsdos-4.01-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf
>>
>> Yes, that looks good.  It also narrows the time frame for when BSDI
>> became BSDi, some time between July 1998 and June 2000.
>>
>> > For 5.x I again don't have much to go on but we can take an indirect
>> > approach from some FreeBSD SMPng reports where BSDi donated source
>> > code that was not used wholesale but instead had to be reintegrated or
>> > rewritten:
>> > * http://www.lemis.com/grog/Daemons-advocate/unix-way-c.html
>>
>> Heh.  I had forgotten about that.
>>
>
> Yes. By the time SMPNG had started, the divergence made lots of the
> kernel code not a drop in. But lots of code was integrated into SMPNG,
> in addition to lots being written / modified.
>
>
>> > I would be pretty confident in saying BSD/OS is _not_ a FreeBSD
>> > derivative but a first order derivative of net/2
>>
>> Yes, I think so.  I can't think of anything else that could have been
>> in between.
>>
>
> BSDi came from net/2. FreeBSD came from net/2. They shared code
> back and forth in the FreeBSD 3.x, 4.x, 5.x and 6.x time period.
>
>
>> > ... that eventually wound up looking a little bit like FreeBSD in
>> > its later years.
>>
>> Hmm.  You haven't discussed how FreeBSD evolved, which was from
>> 386BSD.  And my understanding is that 386BSD, like BSD/386, was also
>> derived from Net/2.  I used both BSD/OS and FreeBSD side by side for a
>> number of years without noticing significant differences.  It wasn't
>> until I started porting the SMP code from BSD/OS 5.0 to FreBSD
>> (coincidentally also 5.0) that I realized how different the kernel had
>> become.
>>
>
> Yes. net/2 -> BSD/386 -> BSD/OS and net/2 -> 386bsd -> patch kit ->
> FreeBSD.
>
> But after the BSD/386, BSDi added SMP work (ASMP) and some vm improvements.
> They did a lot of driver work, including supporting PC Cards and a few
> other things.
> They also wrote 'witness' to debug their locking work that would wind up
> later in FreeBSD.
>
> FreeBSD also added VM improvement from John Dyson in 3.x and 4.x as well as
> ASMP support in 4.x from Steve Passe. CAM was added between 3 and 4 as
> well,
> so we lost a bunch of drivers because CAM was a steep learning curve
> compared
> to the Julian Elischer scsi code that had come before (though in the end
> not
> that different from it, the different world view was hard to approach).
> FreeBSD also
> got a new device model in 3.2 by Doug Rabson (to this day called Newbus,
> despite
> being over 25 years on from whatever oldbus was).
>
> During this time, small bits of code flowed back and forth. You can still
> find commits
> that mention the committer got the code from BSDi, though sometimes that's
> spelled
> 'from Mike Karls' :).
>
> So BSD/386 was 1992 and FreeBSD 1.0 was late 1993. SMP/ng work started in
> 2001
> or so, almost a full decade of evolution where both groups were heavily
> innovating
> core parts of the kernel. These changes made it hard to drop in code.
>
>
>> > According to grog in
>> > (www.lemis.com/grog/Daemons-advocate/unix-way-c.html) there was an
>> > attempt by BSDi to rebase to FreeBSD but it was abandoned.
>>
>> My recollection was that the intention was to merge rather than
>> rebase.  What we did do (the SMP code) was definitely from BSD/OS to
>> FreeBSD.  The rest of the merge idea didn't get very far, and I can't
>> recall any significant attempts to push it forward.
>>
>
> That's what I recall as well. I do recall that FreeBSD had to significantly
> rework much of the code we got from BSD/OS due to the evolution
> in both the kernel, and some of Steve Passe's work had to be unwound
> before we could move forward. And it took years to get done. We'd
> originally
> hoped to do a release in like 2001, and then did a tech preview of 5.0 in
> 2003
> a full release in 5.2 in 2004 that was useable, but it wasn't really until
> maybe
> 2007 or so that SMP was solid.
>
>
>> > I've found scant detail on what WindRiver did with 5.0 and 5.1 so I
>> > am unsure, but in playing around with 5.1 it does have FreeBSD's CAM
>> > layer but does not look like i.e. FreeBSD 5.x in a variety of
>> > material ways.
>>
>> It's worth considering what things were like at the time.   You, as
>> potential user, have the choice: BSD/OS for $1000 or FreeBSD for free.
>> What advantage do you get from BSD/OS?  Yes, there were some, but they
>> weren't really enough to keep BSD/OS viable.  That's why I had made
>> the change a few years earlier, and I don't think that WindRiver's
>> heart was really in it.  So the SMP code was really something like a
>> swan song.
>>
>
> Yes. BSDi's business model hadn't expected the rise of Open Source being
> serious competitors. And the pressures from Linux also helped to slow sales
> around the time the rebase / merge / whatever had been contemplated. Plus
> the sale to WindRiver was supposed to be this wonderful thing, but in the
> end turned out to be not so great.
>
> I've not studied the BSDi CAM. I'll have to do that. I have studied the
> Ultrix/OSF/1
> CAM and it is quite different than the FreeBSD CAM (which has evolved
> significantly
> since 3.x days). The notion of source code compatibility for all SCSI
> drivers was an
> interesting thing, but even between the Ultrix and FreeBSD CAMs, there's
> huge differences
> in headers and function blocks that don't seem to be described by the
> standard and
> that need slightly different code as well...  I've also not been able to
> find source to
> the original MacOS CAM nor the early DOS CAM frameworks, though references
> to
> them litter the early literature from the mid 90s. Both of them moved on
> from CAM
> after the first generation of SCSI devices.
>
> Warner
>
>
>> Greg
>> --
>> Sent from my desktop computer.
>> Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key.
>> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
>> This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
>> reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Larry McVoy]

On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 02:56:10PM -0400, Chet Ramey via TUHS wrote:
> On 8/31/24 10:13 AM, Warner Losh wrote:
> 
> >Yes. They started with net/2. Other accounts have Bill Jolitz bringing some
> >preliminary 386 porting work to BSDi and then leaving in a huff over
> >charging for it.
> 
> Yep. I remember the BSD BOF at one Usenix (1992 maybe?) where Bill got up
> from his seat and started yelling at Kirk/Mike/Keith, asking how they could
> live with themselves. Good times.

I actually hired Bill because I knew about that drama and he really got the
short end of the stick.  Unfairly, in my opinion.  It's sad.  So I gave
him a job for a while.

--lm

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Chet Ramey via TUHS]

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On 8/31/24 10:13 AM, Warner Losh wrote:

> Yes. They started with net/2. Other accounts have Bill Jolitz bringing some
> preliminary 386 porting work to BSDi and then leaving in a huff over
> charging for it.

Yep. I remember the BSD BOF at one Usenix (1992 maybe?) where Bill got up
from his seat and started yelling at Kirk/Mike/Keith, asking how they could
live with themselves. Good times.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Chet Ramey via TUHS]

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On 8/31/24 12:40 AM, Kevin Bowling wrote:

> BSD/386 seems to be a first order derivative of net/2.  Source:
> https://ia902809.us.archive.org/25/items/BSD3861.1CD/bsd1.1-manual.pdf.
> To what degree that it incorporated anything from 386bsd would
> probably rely on first hand accounts.

We ran all of these at CWRU for many years. The mail system, DNS, and
other services all ran on BSD/OS machines. Nice, clean distribution
will full source code and excellent support.

> I don't have much to go on for BSD/OS 2.x but it seems like it was
> about rebasing on 4.4-lite if we look at the family tree
> http://www.netbsd.org/about/history.html

This is about where we got seriously into the game. I probably still have
the source for it somewhere.

I did a bunch of development on that version.

> Not much sourcing to go on for BSD/OS 3.x.

Probably have the source for this, too.

> 
> Luckily for BSD/OS 4.x we get some release notes:
> * https://ia600908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22/items/bsdos-4.01/bsdos-4.01-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf
> * https://ia800900.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/21/items/bsdos-4.1/bsdos-4.1-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf

We definitely used these versions heavily, up through the mid-aughts.

> For 5.x I again don't have much to go on 

I think I have a box with this distribution in my office. That was
after I got out of the server game.

> 
> And what I was initially after, a comparative report on how BSD/OS
> related to others:
> https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix99/full_papers/metz/metz.pdf
> (page 6)
> 
> I would be pretty confident in saying BSD/OS is _not_ a FreeBSD
> derivative but a first order derivative of net/2 that eventually wound
> up looking a little bit like FreeBSD in its later years.

Yep.

BSDI employed a bunch of BSD heavy hitters.

Mike Karels
Keith Bostic
Donn Seeley
Chris Torek
Rob Kolstad (President)
Jeff Honig
Bill Jolitz
Kirk McKusick (one of the founders)

They were a pleasure to work with.

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Warner Losh]

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On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 12:38 AM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:

> On Saturday, 31 August 2024 at  0:12:16 -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> >> From: Kevin Bowling
> >
> >> https://gunkies.org/wiki/BSD/386 and the parent page on seem to suggest
> >> it originated off Net/2 directly.
> >
> > I wouldn't be putting too much weight on what that page says; most of the
> > *BSD pages were done by people I don't know well, and who might have
> gotten
> > details wrong
>
> FWIW, my understanding is also that it came from Net/2.  But it's been
> a few years now, and I wasn't directly involved.  I just can't think
> of anything else from which it could have been derived.
>
> > (So confusing that '386BSD' is something different from
> > 'BSD/386'. Was there ever actually a '386/BSD'?)
>
> Not to my knowledge.
>
> > Someone who knows the early history of all the *BSD systems (as in,
> > you lived through all that) is welcome, nay invited, to fix any
> > errors therein.
>
> I wouldn't exactly call it early history, but my first exposure to
> (any kind of) BSD was in March 1992, when I installed BSDI's BSD/386
> (something like Beta 0.3.1).  You can read more than you want at
> http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-mar1992.php
>
> I subsequently (August 1992) visited Rob Kolstad, who was running the
> show at the time, and he filled me in.  With his help, what I recall
> is:
>
> - Some time in or before 1991, a company called Berkeley Software
>   Design Inc (BSDI) was formed with the intention of completing and
>   marketing a BSD variant.  The system was released as BSD/386 in
>   1992.
>
> - BSDI had a number of prominent BSD people, including Bill Jolitz.
>   Bill was not in agreement that they should charge money for it, and
>   as Rob tells me, in December 1991 Bill left the company after
>   significant altercations, destroying all his work.  He later
>   released his version, 386BSD.
>

Yes. They started with net/2. Other accounts have Bill Jolitz bringing some
preliminary 386 porting work to BSDi and then leaving in a huff over
charging for it. He released 386BSD based on that work (or a redo of
that work, I've seen both accounts, not sure which one to believe). He
released
them to the world, and then had no ability to manage the project he created
leading to the patch kit which without a leader fissioned into NetBSD
and FreeBSD, each with different aims.


> - At some later date BSDI released a SPARC port, at which point the
>   name BSD/386 seemed inappropriate, so they changed it to BSD/OS.  I
>   have a CD set of release 2.0 labeled BSD/OS.
>
> - The last CD set I have is undated, version 3.0, labeled BSDI
>   Internet Server.  I think it was still called BSD/OS, but I can't be
>   sure.
>
>   Round this time I moved away from BSD/OS, since it cost money, and
>   FreeBSD seemed to be just as good.
>
> - In June 2000 we (FreeBSD) discussed merging the code bases of BSD/OS
>   and FreeBSD, specifically for SMP improvements.  At the time the
>   BSD/OS release was 4.x, and we were looking at the 5.0 code.  This
>   is also the first time where I saw the name written as BSDi;
>   previously, including all the CDs, it was always BSDI.
>

There were also a number of items that did get merged into FreeBSD at
this time. We also looked at the PC Card stack moving over, but I didn't
have the time to get it working on FreeBSD because significant SMPNG
work made bringing over the code more difficult and a bigger project than
I had time for.


> On Friday, 30 August 2024 at 21:40:29 -0700, Kevin Bowling wrote:
> >
> > BSD/386 seems to be a first order derivative of net/2.  Source:
> > https://ia902809.us.archive.org/25/items/BSD3861.1CD/bsd1.1-manual.pdf.
> > To what degree that it incorporated anything from 386bsd would
> > probably rely on first hand accounts.
>
> As mentioned above, not at all.  When the first flaky 386BSD betas
> were released, BSD/386 was already up and running.
>

Yes. Jolitz code was in both, but BSDi's BSD/386 was first. There was
a longer beta for it as well. That code circulated a bit before it was
officially released. I think this was to attract VC funding for BSDi, but
that detail is from a half-remembered conversation with Mike Karls and
Kirk McKusick over beers far too many years ago.


> > I don't have much to go on for BSD/OS 2.x but it seems like it was
> > about rebasing on 4.4-lite if we look at the family tree
> > http://www.netbsd.org/about/history.html
>
> Yes, this would have been one of the results of the AT&T lawsuit.
> FreeBSD 2.0 was also rebased on 4.4BSD-Lite.
>

As did NetBSD for 1.0, though they took a different tact: FreeBSD did
a fresh import into a fresh repo, while NetBSD removed bits incrementally
until it was clean, but then had issues making their repo public due to the
settlement with AT&T.

Everybody had to rebase. Nobody could continue to use NET/2 that was using
it when the lawsuit started. After 4.4-lite came out, there was no real
reason for
others to start with net/2, so I'm not aware of anybody else using that
code for
a full kernel.


> > Luckily for BSD/OS 4.x we get some release notes:
> > *
> >
> https://ia600908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22/items/bsdos-4.01/bsdos-4.01-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf
>
> Yes, that looks good.  It also narrows the time frame for when BSDI
> became BSDi, some time between July 1998 and June 2000.
>
> > For 5.x I again don't have much to go on but we can take an indirect
> > approach from some FreeBSD SMPng reports where BSDi donated source
> > code that was not used wholesale but instead had to be reintegrated or
> > rewritten:
> > * http://www.lemis.com/grog/Daemons-advocate/unix-way-c.html
>
> Heh.  I had forgotten about that.
>

Yes. By the time SMPNG had started, the divergence made lots of the
kernel code not a drop in. But lots of code was integrated into SMPNG,
in addition to lots being written / modified.


> > I would be pretty confident in saying BSD/OS is _not_ a FreeBSD
> > derivative but a first order derivative of net/2
>
> Yes, I think so.  I can't think of anything else that could have been
> in between.
>

BSDi came from net/2. FreeBSD came from net/2. They shared code
back and forth in the FreeBSD 3.x, 4.x, 5.x and 6.x time period.


> > ... that eventually wound up looking a little bit like FreeBSD in
> > its later years.
>
> Hmm.  You haven't discussed how FreeBSD evolved, which was from
> 386BSD.  And my understanding is that 386BSD, like BSD/386, was also
> derived from Net/2.  I used both BSD/OS and FreeBSD side by side for a
> number of years without noticing significant differences.  It wasn't
> until I started porting the SMP code from BSD/OS 5.0 to FreBSD
> (coincidentally also 5.0) that I realized how different the kernel had
> become.
>

Yes. net/2 -> BSD/386 -> BSD/OS and net/2 -> 386bsd -> patch kit -> FreeBSD.

But after the BSD/386, BSDi added SMP work (ASMP) and some vm improvements.
They did a lot of driver work, including supporting PC Cards and a few
other things.
They also wrote 'witness' to debug their locking work that would wind up
later in FreeBSD.

FreeBSD also added VM improvement from John Dyson in 3.x and 4.x as well as
ASMP support in 4.x from Steve Passe. CAM was added between 3 and 4 as well,
so we lost a bunch of drivers because CAM was a steep learning curve
compared
to the Julian Elischer scsi code that had come before (though in the end not
that different from it, the different world view was hard to approach).
FreeBSD also
got a new device model in 3.2 by Doug Rabson (to this day called Newbus,
despite
being over 25 years on from whatever oldbus was).

During this time, small bits of code flowed back and forth. You can still
find commits
that mention the committer got the code from BSDi, though sometimes that's
spelled
'from Mike Karls' :).

So BSD/386 was 1992 and FreeBSD 1.0 was late 1993. SMP/ng work started in
2001
or so, almost a full decade of evolution where both groups were heavily
innovating
core parts of the kernel. These changes made it hard to drop in code.


> > According to grog in
> > (www.lemis.com/grog/Daemons-advocate/unix-way-c.html) there was an
> > attempt by BSDi to rebase to FreeBSD but it was abandoned.
>
> My recollection was that the intention was to merge rather than
> rebase.  What we did do (the SMP code) was definitely from BSD/OS to
> FreeBSD.  The rest of the merge idea didn't get very far, and I can't
> recall any significant attempts to push it forward.
>

That's what I recall as well. I do recall that FreeBSD had to significantly
rework much of the code we got from BSD/OS due to the evolution
in both the kernel, and some of Steve Passe's work had to be unwound
before we could move forward. And it took years to get done. We'd originally
hoped to do a release in like 2001, and then did a tech preview of 5.0 in
2003
a full release in 5.2 in 2004 that was useable, but it wasn't really until
maybe
2007 or so that SMP was solid.


> > I've found scant detail on what WindRiver did with 5.0 and 5.1 so I
> > am unsure, but in playing around with 5.1 it does have FreeBSD's CAM
> > layer but does not look like i.e. FreeBSD 5.x in a variety of
> > material ways.
>
> It's worth considering what things were like at the time.   You, as
> potential user, have the choice: BSD/OS for $1000 or FreeBSD for free.
> What advantage do you get from BSD/OS?  Yes, there were some, but they
> weren't really enough to keep BSD/OS viable.  That's why I had made
> the change a few years earlier, and I don't think that WindRiver's
> heart was really in it.  So the SMP code was really something like a
> swan song.
>

Yes. BSDi's business model hadn't expected the rise of Open Source being
serious competitors. And the pressures from Linux also helped to slow sales
around the time the rebase / merge / whatever had been contemplated. Plus
the sale to WindRiver was supposed to be this wonderful thing, but in the
end turned out to be not so great.

I've not studied the BSDi CAM. I'll have to do that. I have studied the
Ultrix/OSF/1
CAM and it is quite different than the FreeBSD CAM (which has evolved
significantly
since 3.x days). The notion of source code compatibility for all SCSI
drivers was an
interesting thing, but even between the Ultrix and FreeBSD CAMs, there's
huge differences
in headers and function blocks that don't seem to be described by the
standard and
that need slightly different code as well...  I've also not been able to
find source to
the original MacOS CAM nor the early DOS CAM frameworks, though references
to
them litter the early literature from the mid 90s. Both of them moved on
from CAM
after the first generation of SCSI devices.

Warner


> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
> reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php
>

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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Noel Chiappa

    > Was there ever actually a '386/BSD'?

I decided (for not particular reason) to take a quick read through Marshall
Kirk McKusick's "Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix From AT&T-Owned to Freely
Redistributable":

  https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/kirkmck.html

and he refers to Jolitz's system as "386/BSD" (apparently incorrectly). (So
there's a lesson there; even people who '_were_ there' can occasionally get it
wrong - something that professional historians are well aware of. I have a
funny story of my learning that lesson, here:

  http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/nontech/tmlotus.html

in a totally different technical area.)

I have yet to see a _scan_ of contemporary documentation (I believe nothing
that isn't a contemporary _physical artifact_) that confirms it was actually
named "386BSD", but that does seem to be the name as given in the Dr. Dobbs
series on it. That series confirms that it was based directly on the 'Net/2'
BSD release (although 'diff's on the sources are probably the most reliable
proof).

	Noel

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

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On Saturday, 31 August 2024 at  0:12:16 -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>> From: Kevin Bowling
>
>> https://gunkies.org/wiki/BSD/386 and the parent page on seem to suggest
>> it originated off Net/2 directly.
>
> I wouldn't be putting too much weight on what that page says; most of the
> *BSD pages were done by people I don't know well, and who might have gotten
> details wrong

FWIW, my understanding is also that it came from Net/2.  But it's been
a few years now, and I wasn't directly involved.  I just can't think
of anything else from which it could have been derived.

> (So confusing that '386BSD' is something different from
> 'BSD/386'. Was there ever actually a '386/BSD'?)

Not to my knowledge.

> Someone who knows the early history of all the *BSD systems (as in,
> you lived through all that) is welcome, nay invited, to fix any
> errors therein.

I wouldn't exactly call it early history, but my first exposure to
(any kind of) BSD was in March 1992, when I installed BSDI's BSD/386
(something like Beta 0.3.1).  You can read more than you want at
http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-mar1992.php

I subsequently (August 1992) visited Rob Kolstad, who was running the
show at the time, and he filled me in.  With his help, what I recall
is:

- Some time in or before 1991, a company called Berkeley Software
  Design Inc (BSDI) was formed with the intention of completing and
  marketing a BSD variant.  The system was released as BSD/386 in
  1992.

- BSDI had a number of prominent BSD people, including Bill Jolitz.
  Bill was not in agreement that they should charge money for it, and
  as Rob tells me, in December 1991 Bill left the company after
  significant altercations, destroying all his work.  He later
  released his version, 386BSD.

- At some later date BSDI released a SPARC port, at which point the
  name BSD/386 seemed inappropriate, so they changed it to BSD/OS.  I
  have a CD set of release 2.0 labeled BSD/OS.

- The last CD set I have is undated, version 3.0, labeled BSDI
  Internet Server.  I think it was still called BSD/OS, but I can't be
  sure.

  Round this time I moved away from BSD/OS, since it cost money, and
  FreeBSD seemed to be just as good.

- In June 2000 we (FreeBSD) discussed merging the code bases of BSD/OS
  and FreeBSD, specifically for SMP improvements.  At the time the
  BSD/OS release was 4.x, and we were looking at the 5.0 code.  This
  is also the first time where I saw the name written as BSDi;
  previously, including all the CDs, it was always BSDI.

On Friday, 30 August 2024 at 21:40:29 -0700, Kevin Bowling wrote:
>
> BSD/386 seems to be a first order derivative of net/2.  Source:
> https://ia902809.us.archive.org/25/items/BSD3861.1CD/bsd1.1-manual.pdf.
> To what degree that it incorporated anything from 386bsd would
> probably rely on first hand accounts.

As mentioned above, not at all.  When the first flaky 386BSD betas
were released, BSD/386 was already up and running.

> I don't have much to go on for BSD/OS 2.x but it seems like it was
> about rebasing on 4.4-lite if we look at the family tree
> http://www.netbsd.org/about/history.html

Yes, this would have been one of the results of the AT&T lawsuit.
FreeBSD 2.0 was also rebased on 4.4BSD-Lite.

> Luckily for BSD/OS 4.x we get some release notes:
> *
> https://ia600908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22/items/bsdos-4.01/bsdos-4.01-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf

Yes, that looks good.  It also narrows the time frame for when BSDI
became BSDi, some time between July 1998 and June 2000.

> For 5.x I again don't have much to go on but we can take an indirect
> approach from some FreeBSD SMPng reports where BSDi donated source
> code that was not used wholesale but instead had to be reintegrated or
> rewritten:
> * http://www.lemis.com/grog/Daemons-advocate/unix-way-c.html

Heh.  I had forgotten about that.

> I would be pretty confident in saying BSD/OS is _not_ a FreeBSD
> derivative but a first order derivative of net/2

Yes, I think so.  I can't think of anything else that could have been
in between.

> ... that eventually wound up looking a little bit like FreeBSD in
> its later years.

Hmm.  You haven't discussed how FreeBSD evolved, which was from
386BSD.  And my understanding is that 386BSD, like BSD/386, was also
derived from Net/2.  I used both BSD/OS and FreeBSD side by side for a
number of years without noticing significant differences.  It wasn't
until I started porting the SMP code from BSD/OS 5.0 to FreBSD
(coincidentally also 5.0) that I realized how different the kernel had
become.

> According to grog in
> (www.lemis.com/grog/Daemons-advocate/unix-way-c.html) there was an
> attempt by BSDi to rebase to FreeBSD but it was abandoned.

My recollection was that the intention was to merge rather than
rebase.  What we did do (the SMP code) was definitely from BSD/OS to
FreeBSD.  The rest of the merge idea didn't get very far, and I can't
recall any significant attempts to push it forward.

> I've found scant detail on what WindRiver did with 5.0 and 5.1 so I
> am unsure, but in playing around with 5.1 it does have FreeBSD's CAM
> layer but does not look like i.e. FreeBSD 5.x in a variety of
> material ways.

It's worth considering what things were like at the time.   You, as
potential user, have the choice: BSD/OS for $1000 or FreeBSD for free.
What advantage do you get from BSD/OS?  Yes, there were some, but they
weren't really enough to keep BSD/OS viable.  That's why I had made
the change a few years earlier, and I don't think that WindRiver's
heart was really in it.  So the SMP code was really something like a
swan song.

Greg
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[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Kevin Bowling]

On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 9:12 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>     > From: Kevin Bowling
>
>     > https://gunkies.org/wiki/BSD/386 and the parent page on seem to suggest
>     > it originated off Net/2 directly.
>
> I wouldn't be putting too much weight on what that page says; most of the
> *BSD pages were done by people I don't know well, and who might have gotten
> details wrong
>
> I myself later just tried to quickly, without much effort, work out roughly
> what the relationship was between those *BSD systems, based on what other
> people had written. E.g the now-'BSD/OS' page was originally at '386/BSD',
> and I seem to have worked out that it's correct name was BSD/OS and moved it
> there. The BSD/386 page is probably roughly correct, since it contains a scan
> of a contemporary ad for it.
>
> (So confusing that '386BSD' is something different from 'BSD/386'. Was there ever
> actually a '386/BSD'?)
>
> Someone who knows the early history of all the *BSD systems (as in, you lived
> through all that) is welcome, nay invited, to fix any errors therein.

I am not that person but I hit the google pretty hard to mostly
satisfy my curiosity.  I would be delighted to hear from such a
person. Sadly, I think the best guy would have been Mike Karels.

BSD/386 seems to be a first order derivative of net/2.  Source:
https://ia902809.us.archive.org/25/items/BSD3861.1CD/bsd1.1-manual.pdf.
To what degree that it incorporated anything from 386bsd would
probably rely on first hand accounts.

I don't have much to go on for BSD/OS 2.x but it seems like it was
about rebasing on 4.4-lite if we look at the family tree
http://www.netbsd.org/about/history.html

Not much sourcing to go on for BSD/OS 3.x.

Luckily for BSD/OS 4.x we get some release notes:
* https://ia600908.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/22/items/bsdos-4.01/bsdos-4.01-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf
* https://ia800900.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/21/items/bsdos-4.1/bsdos-4.1-binary.iso&file=RELEASENOTES.pdf

For 5.x I again don't have much to go on but we can take an indirect
approach from some FreeBSD SMPng reports where BSDi donated source
code that was not used wholesale but instead had to be reintegrated or
rewritten:
* http://www.lemis.com/grog/Daemons-advocate/unix-way-c.html
* https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/usenix01/freenix01/full_papers/lehey/lehey_html/

And what I was initially after, a comparative report on how BSD/OS
related to others:
https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix99/full_papers/metz/metz.pdf
(page 6)

I would be pretty confident in saying BSD/OS is _not_ a FreeBSD
derivative but a first order derivative of net/2 that eventually wound
up looking a little bit like FreeBSD in its later years.  According to
grog in (www.lemis.com/grog/Daemons-advocate/unix-way-c.html) there
was an attempt by BSDi to rebase to FreeBSD but it was abandoned.
I've found scant detail on what WindRiver did with 5.0 and 5.1 so I am
unsure, but in playing around with 5.1 it does have FreeBSD's CAM
layer but does not look like i.e. FreeBSD 5.x in a variety of material
ways.

Regards,
Kevin

>         Noel

[TUHS] Re: BSD/OS

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Kevin Bowling

    > https://gunkies.org/wiki/BSD/386 and the parent page on seem to suggest
    > it originated off Net/2 directly.

I wouldn't be putting too much weight on what that page says; most of the
*BSD pages were done by people I don't know well, and who might have gotten
details wrong

I myself later just tried to quickly, without much effort, work out roughly
what the relationship was between those *BSD systems, based on what other
people had written. E.g the now-'BSD/OS' page was originally at '386/BSD',
and I seem to have worked out that it's correct name was BSD/OS and moved it
there. The BSD/386 page is probably roughly correct, since it contains a scan
of a contemporary ad for it.

(So confusing that '386BSD' is something different from 'BSD/386'. Was there ever
actually a '386/BSD'?)

Someone who knows the early history of all the *BSD systems (as in, you lived
through all that) is welcome, nay invited, to fix any errors therein.

	Noel