[TUHS] Re: AIX moved into maintainance mode (fwd)

[TUHS] Re: AIX moved into maintainance mode (fwd)

[Steve Nickolas]

Accidentally sent this only to the person I was replying to.

> I am getting some grief on Twitter too for "omitting" FreeBSD. I
> didn't, but the BSDs don't fit either definition of "Unix". The
> pre-1993 one being "based on AT&T code" -- after all, BSD (4.4 Lite r2
> was it? Before my time!) -- went to a lot of effort to eliminate AT&T
> code.

From what I've seen it's very much a gradual transition; 4.3-Tahoe starts to
have the new code and UCB copyright notices with the predecessor of what we call
the "BSD License" appearing in some of the source files. Then with Reno, a
majority of the userland is open-sourced, and Net/2 is fairly complete.  (Net/2
and 4.4BSD-Lite / Lite/2 were lacking a few things.)  But even right up until
the end things were in a state of flux.

A few things weren't finished until much later by the FreeBSD, OpenBSD and
NetBSD people.

-uso.

[TUHS] Re: AIX moved into maintainance mode (fwd)

[segaloco via TUHS]

In my own internal narrative at least, my stance is BSD is UNIX moreso than not in that the code may have changed, there may not even be a lick of AT&T in there (not true, handful of files, SCO lawsuit, etc.), but it's still UNIX in design, much more than say something like Linux could be considered.  It's like if some architect inherited the Empire State Building but was then told you can only do anything with it if you replace everything.

In the end, it's still going to be different than taking a plot of land and deciding, hey, I want to build something like the Empire State Building.  In the former sense, you can start to replace the windows, then the door, then the elevators, etc etc, over time, you see a gradual transition of A into B, which leads to unmistakable vestiges since they were actively being worked around and within in the replacement process.

With the latter, you instead have an external vision of what you want to present, and may even be able to visibly present it better than the original since you are going ground up, best practices can be employed, etc.  However, there is a high likelihood that you strip all the cladding and drywall away and the way the actual steel beams are arranged and the load bearing supports and such are likely radically different because they didn't have to be carefully created in a way to truss up the existing structure above them, they just had to be able to support that outward appearance everyone wants.

Analogy over, that's just kinda how I think about that any time the question of BSD's "UNIX-ness" comes up.  Neither building in the above scenario would be bad, they would just have different design goals informing how they work internally vs externally.  BSD wanted to be UNIX compatible for folks familiar with every level, Linux just wanted to present a kernel that one could drop a UNIX-y userland on, but at least in my understanding replicating internal behaviors, structuring, and practices of UNIX was never a design goal/requirement.

- Matt G.

------- Original Message -------
On Thursday, January 19th, 2023 at 12:08 PM, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co> wrote:


> Accidentally sent this only to the person I was replying to.
> 
> > I am getting some grief on Twitter too for "omitting" FreeBSD. I
> > didn't, but the BSDs don't fit either definition of "Unix". The
> > pre-1993 one being "based on AT&T code" -- after all, BSD (4.4 Lite r2
> > was it? Before my time!) -- went to a lot of effort to eliminate AT&T
> > code.
> 
> 
> From what I've seen it's very much a gradual transition; 4.3-Tahoe starts to
> have the new code and UCB copyright notices with the predecessor of what we call
> the "BSD License" appearing in some of the source files. Then with Reno, a
> majority of the userland is open-sourced, and Net/2 is fairly complete. (Net/2
> and 4.4BSD-Lite / Lite/2 were lacking a few things.) But even right up until
> the end things were in a state of flux.
> 
> A few things weren't finished until much later by the FreeBSD, OpenBSD and
> NetBSD people.
> 
> -uso.

[TUHS] Re: AIX moved into maintainance mode (fwd)

[G. Branden Robinson]

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At 2023-01-19T20:21:30+0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote:
> In my own internal narrative at least, my stance is BSD is UNIX moreso
> than not in that the code may have changed, there may not even be a
> lick of AT&T in there (not true, handful of files, SCO lawsuit, etc.),
> but it's still UNIX in design, much more than say something like Linux
> could be considered.  It's like if some architect inherited the Empire
> State Building but was then told you can only do anything with it if
> you replace everything.
> 
> In the end, it's still going to be different than taking a plot of
> land and deciding, hey, I want to build something like the Empire
> State Building.  In the former sense, you can start to replace the
> windows, then the door, then the elevators, etc etc, over time, you
> see a gradual transition of A into B, which leads to unmistakable
> vestiges since they were actively being worked around and within in
> the replacement process.

Engineers who (stereotypically) disdain the study of humanities seem
frequently to discover the Ship of Theseus problem.  ;-)

Maybe TOG has the best approach after all; if your supercargo can pony
up the gold and your pilot can navigate your craft between Scylla and
Charybdis, you get to call it the Ship of Theseus, even if many others
are afloat.  :D

Regards,
Branden

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