*BSD News Article 1699


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!network.ucsd.edu!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!kithrup!sef
From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Subject: Funding 4.4BSD Development
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 04:48:57 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.044857.10776@kithrup.COM>
References: <79@ampr.ab.ca> <cproto.709610370@marsh>
Sender: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Supersedes: <1992Jun27.034757.8202@kithrup.COM>
Lines: 55

In article <cproto.709610370@marsh> cproto@marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au (Computer Protocol) writes:
>To keep BSD alive everybody
>who can afford it should donate some money to Bill Jolitz. 

I do not disagree with the sentiment of sending money to the Jolitzes.
Everybody needs money to survive, and if you are using their software, and
consider it useful and worth some money, then you should send them some.

>He has done
>more for the computer science world then AT&T and CSRG and BSDI. 

I am torn between sighing heavily and screaming at the top of my lungs.
I think the screaming part of me is going to win.

Once again:  Bill and Lynn Jolitz have done an incredible amount of work.
To say, however, that they have done more than CSRG (let alone the others!)
is even more offensive than other people saying that BSDi is cheap enough
that there is no need for a free system.

>Thanks to him and thousands of other people
>who contributed to BSD it is now available to every science and research
>group as well as every student who has access to a PC. 

Oh, so you *agree* that it's *not* just him?

>So stuff BSDI and AT&T, let the CSRG die but send your money to
>Bill. He works very hard without any funding so we who benefit from his
>work should support him if we can.

What about the FSF?  What about the guy at CMU (whose name I embarassingly
forget) who has written the free BSD single server for Mach3.0?  Don't
*they* deserve any of your money?

What about the people who contributed code to BSD, not just 386BSD?  Don't
*they* deserve some of it?  (Chris Torek wrote all of stdio, for example;
doesn't he deserve any recompense for that?)

>Thanks again Bill.

Yes, thanks to Bill.  And thanks to Keith, Kirk, Mike, Chris, Marc, Cynthia,
Dick, and all those others who have, over the years, contributed software to
UCB / CSRG and allowed it to be distributed free.  All of these people
deserve *lots* of thanks, as well, for without their code, the job might not
have been possible.  And thanks again to Keith, who bore the brunt of trying
to coordinate software donations by people interested in contributing to a
free BSD system, and thanks to Kirk for going out and hounding people for
money.

Being the most visible does not make you the most valuble.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "My psychiatrist says I have a messiah
sef@kithrup.COM  |  complex.  But I forgive him."
-----------------+              -- Jim Carrey
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.