From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.6 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,HTML_MESSAGE,MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id bc84891d for ; Mon, 20 Jan 2020 17:50:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id E39D49C13F; Tue, 21 Jan 2020 03:50:52 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E70869C0FD; Tue, 21 Jan 2020 03:49:38 +1000 (AEST) Authentication-Results: minnie.tuhs.org; dkim=fail reason="signature verification failed" (2048-bit key; unprotected) header.d=bsdimp-com.20150623.gappssmtp.com header.i=@bsdimp-com.20150623.gappssmtp.com header.b="c5sy4yvR"; dkim-atps=neutral Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 196449C0FD; Tue, 21 Jan 2020 03:49:38 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-qk1-f172.google.com (mail-qk1-f172.google.com [209.85.222.172]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id EE8589BFE6 for ; Tue, 21 Jan 2020 03:49:33 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-qk1-f172.google.com with SMTP id z76so56971qka.2 for ; Mon, 20 Jan 2020 09:49:33 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=bsdimp-com.20150623.gappssmtp.com; s=20150623; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc; bh=8+LwvxWKJRES06LPd78PEJrsu8vDsKGJmR/VBA4fFzw=; b=c5sy4yvREZ5m81pUOYwY3gxT6AQqo6aKkhr6JO112YVccKC/sZHjDNQ7je/9rn77wG P5ps1B47RSllWybUg6vucImmXsIqp6KRUBdeiUw3ABYRk+QJ3eztXR02ptcYjvT1g/Rm qgwGsHCO9DoOw+8H4w3HRxhsyD86qy8QhIVaQsngz0a69rjdMBhbiN2jS256WV6DDVNY VT7lULjrOnySyJNA45hnsInA6Zh8CgqHINCjUv8ciXAddJwGPkl/MTqFrS9r5g5FjhqB f30MO21Dr/1wgNPjhTsv0XwPKJlT0SGD1eoA16uL5e9pcP8Tyyz0t+KfT7hYL65Ta60U hphw== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=8+LwvxWKJRES06LPd78PEJrsu8vDsKGJmR/VBA4fFzw=; b=ZmK7tYG/jAmGIYGR41JVxdIvMY1cCB9JNB6r7vXS3Pcmv897VIWEdm1suRXFp8uTO6 wehsvS8nHpuorYZ0tk/zxq1CBOefPkkquu5egmJH8FcCoRHwpsOt6KTOcyW7gFH7p8S6 Cqsj3Hb7V1f3+kV2IMNZdy/IEy2Hd1e8q2jxfzF8NWNXmIz/Rs7y9j8A9J2B3YWDXiaE ISehe/FroBqs8vPdIiFu/oYhp8CO1erfHyjqEvCdP3PTARgmv7MojN11zp5Bx1TDo6eq F9H32ixu6f9YDKnQ/VNk8v0eClmhONmAFOXZLNBxGRBFbAIfkrsl2QbNVYeBrwaoT3bJ CIOg== X-Gm-Message-State: APjAAAXysT0/20Lo+IFQ8tdT+osWMRuc+F97OO1bJWyHni+NNCfrDnt2 qKbUsYr/JA1RMbL5VSc/tjVq3lwAKu3GdJOPMy9LXXno X-Google-Smtp-Source: APXvYqzW2FZM+j0gvcIKgqlkI/i496g8ZZib0ke43LdpoRw+QI9xCTAZEDpvv4AbrufAIh5JduPA5b5c7zBr9EsTy6w= X-Received: by 2002:a05:620a:795:: with SMTP id 21mr746301qka.60.1579542573010; Mon, 20 Jan 2020 09:49:33 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20200117195908.GF15253@ancienthardware.org> <20200118035051.GC481935@mit.edu> <20200118041913.GB67053@eureka.lemis.com> <20200119024900.GA15860@mit.edu> <20200119031225.GI67053@eureka.lemis.com> <20200119035808.GK67053@eureka.lemis.com> <20200119132551.GC15860@mit.edu> In-Reply-To: From: Warner Losh Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 10:49:21 -0700 Message-ID: To: Clem Cole Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000f8e5c4059c95e96e" Subject: Re: [TUHS] Early Linux and BSD (was: On the origins of Linux - "an academic question") X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" --000000000000f8e5c4059c95e96e Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Thanks Clem. One minor clarification. Jordan and the patchkit work did predate NetBSD. However, the NetBSD project formed a little before the FreeBSD project that grew out of the patchkit days. Jordan didn't get that moving until NetBSD made rumblings... it was still a time that you heard a lot of what was going on by word of mouth, not so much by postings and email... The OpenBSD split was years later... and a complicated mix of personality conflicts and technical differences. But in many ways it was a smaller split since for a long time they were almost 100% compatible at the driver level (something you could never really say about net and free). Warner On Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 10:21 AM Clem Cole wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 10:52 PM George Michaelson > wrote: > >> It does me no credit, that I initially reacted very badly to 386BSD, >> and the initial {Net,Free,Open} situation. >> > First, be careful. What we sometimes call 386BSD as a 'release' started > just as a port of NET2 to the 386 based 'commodity' hardware platform. The > history is that in the late 1970s/early 80s Bill Jolitz was working for Nat > Semi and ported BSD 4.1, to a multibus based NS16032 board that NS had > built, which was similar to the Stanford University Network (SUN) terminal > what had a 68000. He eventually built a 'luggable' using that and > updated to the port to 4.2++. He (and Lynn I believe) started a company > to sell that hardware/software solution and for whatever reason, it did not > really take off. > > At some point, he got his hands on a 386based PC (Compaq I think) and > started to move his port over to that system. A number of people helped > him (for instance I did a bunch of the AT/disk controller work as I had > access to the WD design documents for another consulting gig I had at the > time - Bill mentioned this in the articles BTW). > > Bill and Lynn's NS16032 and 386 code went back to the CSRG 'masters' - > although how and that happened was never completely clear to me. The SCCS > deltas tell at least part of the story. Bill managed to make a bootable > image that mostly installed on a PC/386 as the minicomputer versions did > from the formal release. The ftp area of ucbvax had all of these bootable > images available for download such as one for an HP 68K system and I think > the DEC VAX and PMAX, the CCG system and a few others IIRC. As I have said > in other messages if you were a UCB licensee you had the passwords to > look/download from that area. Bill placed that version in the same ftp > area. The 386 based port went viral at least with the UCB licensees. (In > fact, if Linus had known about it, theoretically he could have used it > also. His university was licensee, but as Larry McVoy likes to point, not > all the schools were as free with the IP, so I will not go down that > rathole). > > The bottom line is that many people (like me on a Wyse386) started with > Bill's original port; including the BSDi founders. > > When Jolitz and BSDi went separate ways, Jolitiz continued to update the > CSRG 386 based tarball (to an extent). One of the issues was there > originally was attempt to keep the different architectural versions of BSD > in sync ( to a point and NetBSD does yet exist). A number of people were > unhappy and the speed, depth *etc*. of the 386 version, most > notably Jordan Hubbard and FreeBSD was born. The two biggest issues Jordan > wanted to fix, was easier install and a bit wider support for more hardware > (again I sent Jordan the changes to FreeBSN 1x for the Wyse and a couple of > NCR boxes). The NetBSD project would birth from the original ideals of > CSRG and trying to keep everything the same but that's still in the future. > > > > >> >> I found all this "fragmentation" pretty hard to understand. -BSDI felt >> like it had occupied the space, and I couldn't entirely understand >> what was going on, or why any of it mattered. >> > See below.... > > > > >> What I think I missed (didn't understand) was how draining support was >> for Berkeley, and in the absence of a sugar daddy >> > Herein is the issue that many people on the sidelines missed. > > CRSG was a large project and funded a lot of work at UCB in EECS. It never > funded me (I was funded by Tektronix, HP, DEC *et al*), but that project > did a fund a number of students. However, at some point CSRG stopped being > a research project and started being a support project for DARPA. There > was also a good deal of resentment by some groups in EECS that were not > getting DARPA funding. > I'll not say if that was good or bad but I will say that it did cause > great deal consternation at UCB within the department and many people doing > more formal research were not happy. In the end, the EECS > Department mothers and fathers along with the Dean *et al*, decided to > stop/end the CSRG project. Many people who were directly or indirectly > working on BSD, like Mary Ann and myself, had graduated and had since > left. Bob Kridle had formed Mt. Xinu, Asa Romberger has formed Unisoft, Joy > had left/was leaving for Sun, *etc*. So the question remained what to > do with CSRG. As to what everyone would do, became every person for > her/himself and as we know some of the folks, along with a few folks from > the USENIX community formed BSDi. > > As was noted elsewhere, NetBSD would eventually be formed by volunteers to > keep the different ports alive (in fact much of the efforts was from folks > not at UCB), but that was still in the offing. Remember, while CSRG > itself was not a research project, a lot of people around the world were > using the BSD code base for their own research. The whole idea of NetBSD > was to create a uniform platform that people could compare things. So, the > question of how that was to come about or do any work on BSD if DARPA was > not paying the bills, was still an open one. But, the idea that would > eventually create FreeBSD, was supporting a pure commodity *solution for > day-to-day use, not as a research platform*. [I'll leave off the later > OpenBSD/NetBSD fork by Theo here as it has little to do with the question]. > > BSDi had a similar/same goal of producing something like SunOS/VMS *etc* but > supported on commodity hardware. That solution was to sell it and using > the revenues from the support contract, be able to pay people to do that > work. As I said and in some other messages, it is noted that Bill Jolitz > wanted something more FOSS. Truth is BSDi code was 'open source' but it > took a $1K license to *get the source from them*. > > In the end, the real problem was not the infighting between the different > BSD camps, but AT&T, who wanted the entire pie. Clearly, their executives > saw anything other than their complete control of the UNIX IP as a threat. > Hence the court case, the eventually AT&T/Sun relationship *etc*... > > Your lack of 'sugar daddy,' really comes back to that. There were few > people at the time that could pay the bills. Until then DARPA had been > it. I do not know if DARPA wanted out or if another group could have been > formed that could take over CSRG. I did have discussions with Rob over a > beer that at least the thought had crossed the BSDi folks mind, that once > started; they would apply for a DARPA contract. > > At the time had blow up, I was a consultant and I personally was > considering what I was going to do next and if they had had a real future, > the talks with Rob might have gotten more serious. My wife wanted me to > stop being independent if we were to start a family (I would join Locus > instead). > > BTW: I was in an interesting position as I was friends with all of the > different sides in the war/original fight. Like Jolitz, I wanted to see > what we now call a 'FOSS' release of BSD. But like Rob, I knew it was > going to take some revenue stream to make it happen/continue the support. > In the end, the AT&T legal mess blew it all up. BSDi ended up failing > and Jordan's work stayed around. > > BTW: what pays for Linux development these days by number of 'committers > salary' is Intel (#1), IBM (#2), then a load of other firms including the > different distros. But for *any* platform to be successful and actually > continue to be used in the market, someone has to pay the salaries of some > set of professional programmers to do the work. > > That said when AT&T injoined BSDi and UCB a lot of people (myself > included) started to hack on Linux. But just think if AT&T had actually > won the case and courts decided UNIX was allowed to be a trade secret, then > Linux and all of the UNIX 'clones' would have been in violation. > > No matter what flavor of UNIX you like, we are all in debt to UCB and BSDi > for settling the IP argument. The court was clear, the >>ideas<< behind > UNIX (*a.k.a.* the intellectual property) came from Ken, Dennis and > friends at AT&T and *they did own it.* But because of the 1956 consent > decree that published the ideas and the moment the ideas were published, we > all can now >>use<< them. The provenance of the source code does not > relate to the provenance of the idea, so* the source code itself does not > define what UNIX is or is not. * > > I bring this all up in hopes to try to close this rat hole of Linux, *vs*. > *BSD. Like editors, we all have our own favorites. That's cool, we don't > want one thing to be forced down our throat. Having a choice is what is > good. And what I value, Larry or Jon may not necessarily like. Most of > us if not all on this list probably want something that approximates Ken > and Dennis's original ideas not what IBM, DEC, CDC were trying to make us > use in the old days or what Microsoft calls a system today. > > The discussion of how we got there and what people valued at the time is > useful so we can try to remember the history and learn from it; but getting > into right/wrong, good/bad, or you could have had this is a tad tiresome; > IMO. > --000000000000f8e5c4059c95e96e Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Thanks=C2=A0Clem.

One minor clarification.=C2=A0 Jordan and the patchkit work did preda= te NetBSD. However, the NetBSD project formed a little before the FreeBSD p= roject that grew out of the patchkit days. Jordan didn't get that movin= g until NetBSD made rumblings... it was still a time that you heard a lot o= f what was going on by word=C2=A0of mouth, not so much by postings and emai= l...

The OpenBSD split w= as years later... and a complicated mix of personality conflicts and techni= cal differences. But in many ways it was a smaller split since for a long t= ime they were almost 100% compatible at the driver level (something you cou= ld never really say about net and free).

<= div dir=3D"auto">Warner

On Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 10:21 AM Clem Cole <= clemc@ccc.com> wrote:


On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 10:52 PM George Michaelson <ggm@algebras= .org> wrote:
It does me no credit, that I initially r= eacted very badly to 386BSD,
and the initial {Net,Free,Open} situation.
<= font color=3D"#0000ff">First, be careful.=C2=A0 =C2=A0What we sometimes cal= l 386BSD as a 'release' started just as a port of NET2 to the 386 b= ased 'commodity' hardware platform.=C2=A0 The history is that in th= e late 1970s/early 80s Bill Jolitz was working for Nat Semi=C2=A0and ported BSD 4.1, to a multi= bus based NS16032 board that NS had built, which was similar to the Stanfor= d University Network (SUN) terminal what had a 68000.=C2=A0=C2=A0He eventually built a 'luggable&= #39; using that and updated to the port to 4.2++.=C2=A0 =C2=A0He (and Lynn = I believe) started a company to sell that hardware/software solution and fo= r whatever reason, it did not really take off.

At some point, he = got his hands on a 386based PC (Compaq I think) and started to move his por= t over to that system.=C2=A0 =C2=A0A number of people helped him (for insta= nce I did a bunch of the AT/disk controller work as I had access to the WD = design documents for another=C2=A0consulting gig I had at the time - Bill m= entioned this in the articles BTW).
=
Bill and Lynn's NS16032 and= 386 code went back to the CSRG 'masters' - although how and that h= appened=C2=A0was never completely clear to me. The SCCS deltas tell at leas= t part of the story.=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0Bill managed to make a bootable ima= ge that mostly installed on a PC/386 as the minicomputer versions did from = the formal release.=C2=A0 =C2=A0The ftp area of ucbvax had all of these boo= table images available for download such as one for an HP 68K system and I = think the DEC VAX and PMAX, the CCG system and a few others IIRC.=C2=A0 As = I have said in other messages if you were a UCB licensee=C2=A0you had the p= asswords to look/download from that area.=C2=A0 =C2=A0 Bill placed that ver= sion in the same ftp area.=C2=A0 The 386 based port went viral at least wit= h the UCB licensees.=C2=A0 (In fact, if Linus had known about it, theoretic= ally he could have used it also.=C2=A0 =C2=A0His university was licensee, b= ut as Larry McVoy likes to point, not all the schools were as free with the= IP, so I will not go down that rathole).

The bottom line is that m= any people (like me on a=C2=A0Wyse386) started with Bill's original por= t; including the BSDi founders.

=
When Jolitz and BSDi went separate = ways, Jolitiz continued to update the CSRG 386 based tarball (to an extent)= .=C2=A0 One of the issues was there originally was attempt to keep the diff= erent architectural versions of BSD in sync ( to a point and NetBSD does ye= t exist).=C2=A0 =C2=A0 A number of people were unhappy and the speed,=C2=A0= depth etc. of the 386 version, most notably=C2=A0Jordan Hubbard and = FreeBSD was born.=C2=A0 The two biggest issues Jordan wanted to fix, was ea= sier install and a bit wider support for more hardware (again I sent Jordan= the changes to FreeBSN 1x for the Wyse and a couple of NCR boxes).=C2=A0 T= he NetBSD project would birth from the original ideals of CSRG and trying t= o keep everything the same but that's still in the future.
=

<= /font>
=C2=A0

I found all this "fragmentation" pretty hard to understand. -BSDI= felt
like it had occupied the space, and I couldn't entirely understand
what was going on, or why any of it mattered.
<= div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif= ">See below....


=C2=A0
What I think I missed (didn't under= stand) was how draining support was
for Berkeley, and in the absence of a sugar daddy
Herein is the issue that many people on the = sidelines missed.=C2=A0

CRSG w= as a large project and funded a lot of work at=C2=A0UCB in EECS. It never f= unded me (I was funded by Tektronix, HP, DEC et al), but that projec= t did a fund a number of students.=C2=A0 However, at some point CSRG stoppe= d being a research project and started being a support project for DARPA.= =C2=A0 There was also a good deal of resentment by some groups in EECS that= were not getting DARPA funding.
I'll not= say if that was good or bad but I will say that it did cause great deal co= nsternation at UCB within the department and many people doing more formal = research were not happy.=C2=A0 =C2=A0 In the end, the EECS Department=C2=A0= mothers and fathers along with the Dean et al, decided to stop/end t= he CSRG project.=C2=A0 Many people who were directly or indirectly working = on BSD, like Mary Ann and myself, had graduated and had since left.=C2=A0= =C2=A0Bob Kridle had formed Mt. Xinu<= span class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-seri= f">, Asa Romberger has formed Unisoft,=C2=A0Joy had left/was l= eaving for Sun, etc.=C2=A0 =C2=A0 So the question remained what to do= with CSRG.=C2=A0 =C2=A0As to what everyone would do, became every person f= or her/himself and as we know some of the folks, along with a few folks fro= m the USENIX community formed BSDi.

As was noted= elsewhere, NetBSD would eventually be formed by volunteers to keep the dif= ferent ports alive (in fact much of the efforts was from folks not at UCB),= but that was still in the offing.=C2=A0 =C2=A0Remember, while CSRG itself = was not a research project, a lot of people around the world were using the= BSD code base for their own research.=C2=A0 The whole idea of NetBSD was t= o create a uniform platform that people could compare things.=C2=A0 So, the= question of how that was to come about or do any work on BSD if DARPA was = not paying the bills, was still an open one.=C2=A0 But, the idea that would= eventually create FreeBSD, was supporting a pure commodity solution for= day-to-day use,=C2=A0not as a research=C2=A0platform. [I'll leave = off the later OpenBSD/NetBSD fork by Theo here as it has little to do with = the question].

BSDi had a similar/same g= oal of producing something like SunOS/VMS etc=C2=A0but supported on = commodity hardware.=C2=A0 That solution was to sell it and using the revenu= es from the support contract, be able to pay people to do that work.=C2=A0 = As I said and in some other messages, it is noted that=C2=A0Bill Jolitz wan= ted something more FOSS.=C2=A0 =C2=A0Truth is BSDi code was 'open sourc= e' but it took a $1K license to get the source from them.=

= In the end, the=C2=A0real problem was not the i= nfighting between the different BSD camps, but AT&T, who wanted the ent= ire pie.=C2=A0 Clearly, their executives saw anything other than their comp= lete control of the UNIX IP as a threat.=C2=A0 Hence the court case, the ev= entually=C2=A0AT&T/Sun relationship etc...

Your lack of 'sugar daddy,' really comes back to that.= =C2=A0 =C2=A0There were few people at the time that could pay the bills.=C2= =A0 Until then DARPA had been it.=C2=A0 I do not know if DARPA wanted out o= r if another group could have been formed that could take over CSRG.=C2=A0 = I did have discussions with Rob over a beer that at least the thought had c= rossed the BSDi folks mind, that once started; they would apply for a DARPA= contract.

<= /span>
At the time had=C2=A0blow up, = I was a consultant and I personally was considering what I was going to do = next and if they had had a real future, the talks with Rob might have gotte= n more=C2=A0serious.=C2=A0 =C2=A0My wife wanted me to stop being independen= t if we were to start a family (I would join Locus instead).<= /div>

BTW: I was in an interesting position as I was friends = with all of the different sides in the war/original fight.=C2=A0 Like Jolit= z, I wanted to see what we now call a 'FOSS' release of BSD.=C2=A0 = =C2=A0But like Rob, I knew it was going to take some revenue stream to make= it happen/continue the support.=C2=A0 =C2=A0 In the end, the AT&T lega= l mess blew it all up.=C2=A0 =C2=A0BSDi ended up failing and Jordan's w= ork stayed around.

=
BTW: what pays for Lin= ux development these days by number of 'committers salary' is Intel= (#1), IBM (#2), then a load of other firms including the different distros= .=C2=A0 But for any platform to be successful=C2=A0and actually cont= inue to be used in the market, someone has to pay the salaries of some set = of professional programmers to do the work.

That said when AT&T injoined=C2=A0BSDi and UCB a lot of people (myse= lf included) started to hack on Linux.=C2=A0 But just think if AT&T had= actually won the case and courts decided UNIX was allowed to be a trade se= cret, then Linux and all of the UNIX 'clones' would have been in vi= olation.

No matter what flavor of UNIX yo= u like, we are all in debt to UCB and BSDi for settling the IP argument.=C2= =A0 The court was clear, the >>ideas<< behind UNIX (a.k.a. the intellectual property) came from Ken, Dennis and friends at AT&T= and they did own it.=C2=A0 =C2=A0But because of the 1956 consent de= cree that published the ideas and the moment the ideas were published, we a= ll can now >>use<< them.=C2=A0 The provenance of the source cod= e does not relate to the provenance of the idea, so=C2=A0the source code= itself does not define what UNIX is or is not.=C2=A0=C2=A0

I bring this all up in hopes to try to close = this rat hole of Linux, vs. *BSD.=C2=A0 =C2=A0Like editors, we all h= ave our own favorites.=C2=A0 That's cool, we don't want one thing t= o be forced down our throat.=C2=A0 Having a choice is what is good.=C2=A0 = =C2=A0And what I value, Larry or Jon may not necessarily=C2=A0like.=C2=A0 = =C2=A0Most of us if not all on this list probably want something that appro= ximates Ken and Dennis's original ideas not what IBM, DEC, CDC were try= ing to make us use in the old days or what Microsoft calls a system today.= =C2=A0

The discussion of how we got there= and what people valued at the time is useful so we can try to remember the= history and learn from it; but getting into right/wrong, good/bad, or you = could have had this is a tad tiresome; IMO.=C2=A0=C2=A0
= --000000000000f8e5c4059c95e96e--