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From: George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org>
To: Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com>
Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: [TUHS] Re: forgotten versions
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2022 09:44:02 +1000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAKr6gn1sOmfBu6v1SQSh=xOCD8XOt54=kVdEt4aD2zB5houS8A@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAKr6gn1o1B_m348+owx7RmsxMwhKy-sqSPvacZtm5kAhBLvk7w@mail.gmail.com>

Another take on this is Mike Lesk's saying "its easy to occupy a
vacuum its harder to push something aside" said of UUCP.

v7 exploded into the world, and made BSD and SunOS happen.

v8 and 9 and 10 had to work harder to get mindshare because something
was already there.

things like rc were too "confrontational" to a mind attuned to bourne
shell.  Sockets (which btw, totally SUCK PUS) were coded into things
and even (YECHH) made POSIX and IETF spec status. Streams didn't stand
a chance.

basically, v7 succeeded too well, for v8/9/10 to get mindshare. I
agree it sucks they aren't documented, its just wrong: Serious OS
history needs to look beyond the narrow path in view. I'd say anyone
who doesn't write about them at length hasn't done their homework.

-G

On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 9:18 AM George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:
>
> you're not wrong, but the other take on this is that the AT&T
> licensing and some other things tended to make the circle of people
> who could "see" this code significantly smaller than those feeding off
> Unix 32V/v7 -> BSD -> Solaris.
>
> this isn't meant to imply you did anything "wrong" -It was probably a
> huge distraction having randoms begging for a tape of v8/9/10 with low
> to no willingness to "give back"
>
> -G
>
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 9:06 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Excited as I was to see this history of Unix code in a single repository:
> >
> > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo
> >
> > it continues the long-standing tradition of ignoring all the work done at Bell Labs after v7. I consider v8 v9 v10 to be worth of attention, even influential, but to hear this list talk about it - or discussions just about anywhere else - you'd think they never existed. There are exceptions, but this site does reinforce the broadly known version of the story.
> >
> > It's doubly ironic for me because people often mistakenly credit me for working on Unix, but I landed at the Labs after v7 was long dispatched. At the Labs, I first worked on what became v8.
> >
> > I suppose it's because the history flowed as this site shows, with BSD being the driving force for a number of reasons, but it feels to me that a large piece of Unix history has been sidelined.
> >
> > I know it's a whiny lament, but those neglected systems had interesting advances.
> >
> > -rob
> >

  reply	other threads:[~2022-06-16 23:44 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 51+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2022-06-16 23:06 [TUHS] " Rob Pike
2022-06-16 23:17 ` [TUHS] " Earl Baugh
2022-06-16 23:18 ` George Michaelson
2022-06-16 23:44   ` George Michaelson [this message]
2022-06-17  0:10     ` Larry McVoy
2022-06-17 16:23     ` [TUHS] Sockets vs Streams (was " Bakul Shah
2022-06-17 17:43       ` [TUHS] " Paul Winalski
2022-06-17 22:52       ` Dan Stromberg
2022-06-17  7:20 ` [TUHS] " Diomidis Spinellis
2022-06-17  7:33   ` Rob Pike
2022-06-17  8:34   ` arnold
2022-06-17 10:52 ` arnold
2022-06-18  7:05 ` Angelo Papenhoff
2022-06-19  7:50   ` Rob Pike
2022-06-19  8:17     ` Angelo Papenhoff
2022-06-19  8:53       ` Rob Pike
2022-06-19  9:02         ` Angelo Papenhoff
2022-06-19  9:14           ` arnold
2022-06-19  9:19             ` Angelo Papenhoff
2022-06-19  9:23               ` arnold
2022-06-19 11:37                 ` Matthias Bruestle
2022-06-19 14:47         ` Kenneth Goodwin
2022-06-19 16:27           ` Al Kossow
2022-06-19 18:32           ` Theodore Ts'o
2022-06-19 18:38             ` Dan Cross
2022-06-21 23:56               ` Jacob Moody
2022-06-22  0:13                 ` Larry McVoy
2022-06-22  0:48                   ` Rob Pike
2022-06-22  1:55                     ` George Michaelson
2022-06-22  2:10                       ` Bakul Shah
2022-06-22  2:14                       ` Jon Steinhart
2022-06-22  2:19                         ` Andrew Hume
2022-06-22  2:58                           ` Rob Pike
2022-06-22  3:09                             ` George Michaelson
2022-06-22  2:16                   ` Andrew Hume
2022-06-22  2:55                   ` Brad Spencer
2022-06-17 14:50 Paul Ruizendaal
2022-06-18  0:35 Douglas McIlroy
2022-06-18  5:00 ` Kevin Bowling
2022-06-18  5:13   ` Adam Thornton
2022-06-18 16:58     ` Clem Cole
2022-06-18 17:18       ` Warner Losh
2022-06-18 17:57         ` Clem Cole
2022-06-18 19:55 Paul Ruizendaal
2022-06-22 12:06 Noel Chiappa
2022-06-23  0:02 ` Dan Cross
2022-06-23  2:18 Noel Chiappa
2022-06-24  6:47 Paul Ruizendaal
2022-06-25 19:16 ` Anthony Martin
2022-06-25 20:45   ` Paul Ruizendaal
2022-06-27  0:57     ` Kevin Bowling

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