There needs to be a book with stuff like this. There is no Unix history
book that I have ever seen with the depth of information in threads like
this and others on TUHS. It would be a huge project and hard to tell if
there would me more than just recognition and intrinsic rewards for the
effort -- but maybe that is enough.
I think it would be cool, but we need better data visualization. There's a lot of rich history here that people like me try to boil down to a few ovals and arrows, but the real answer is much more complicated. We need the equivalent to Mindard's analysis of Napoleon's march to Moscow and back to show how things like awk entered, and where, and different 'sub editions' and different lines of code maintained outside the overly simple narrative of V1 -> V2 ... -> V7 -> 32V -> chaos. :)
(As an example, I have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours
researching a small subset: Berkeley Unix history. Attempted to contact
hundreds of historical participants. Interviewed near 100 people; most
by email, but some in person or by phone -- even postal mail! Building a
massive collection of historical data. Read over 30 physical books
covering very small parts of the story. Watched many videos (and notes).
Getting documents scanned and sent to me. It is a very detailed effort
-- such as a single long chapter on the Virtual Vax/UNIX / London/Reiser
/ Babaoglu story with 168 citations or the single chapters on the
official unofficial patchkits, lawsuit, etc. -- and there is nothing in
this field to compare it too. I have over 243 bibtex entries already and
215 citations left to add to my .bib file. During that time, I have
published six other books, some written from scratch. Some have
suggested I use Kickstarter or similar as a financial incentive to
finish it off.)
Since the Unix story is so huge, a first volume could be up through
System III, for example, but maybe that is too much.
Anyone know of anyone writing a thorough Unix history book?
I'd be keen to write up what I've found.
Does it make sense to use a kickstarter?
I may bring up in a different thread, but I am presenting about Unix
history at Dallas Ft. Worth UNIX Users Group soon. They are planning to
have two meetings (different months) dedicated to the history (50th
anniversary).
If they are large enough, I could be persuaded to reprise my EuroBSDcon talk at them, assuming people are happy with how it turns out....
Warner
Jeremy C. Reed
p.s. Sorry to mention this, but time is running out:
$ grep -i decease /home/reed/book/bsd-history/PEOPLE | wc -l
17
pps. My other chapters:
beginning.tex:\chapter{In the beginning ...}
2bsd.tex:\chapter{Second Berkeley Software Tape}
3bsd.tex:\chapter{Welcome to Virtual Vax/UNIX}
2bsd-part2.tex:\chapter{2BSD becomes an operating system}
4bsd.tex:\chapter{4BSD}
43bsd.tex:\chapter{4.3BSD -- The Internet Server}
2bsd-part3.tex:\chapter{The 16-bit 2BSD continues}
43bsd-part2.tex:\chapter{To open source BSD}
commercial.tex:\chapter{Commercial Unixes using BSD}
44bsd.tex:\chapter{4.4BSD}
bsdi.tex:\chapter{BSDI}
386bsd.tex:\chapter{386BSD Part 1}
lawsuit.tex:\chapter{Lawsuit}
patchkit.tex:\chapter{The official unofficial patchkits}
netbsd.tex:\chapter{NetBSD}
freebsd.tex:\chapter{FreeBSD}
386bsd-part3.tex:\chapter{386BSD Part 2}
bsdi-part2.tex:\chapter{BSDI part 2}
openbsd.tex:\chapter{OpenBSD}
netbsd-part2.tex:\chapter{NetBSD -- Part 2}
dragonfly.tex:\chapter{DragonFly BSD}
3bsd-license.tex:\chapter{3BSD Software Agreement (1979)}
4bsd-license.tex:\chapter{4BSD Software Agreement (1980)}
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