*BSD News Article 47232


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From: Terry Lambert <terry@cs.weber.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: What is BSD
Date: 23 Jul 1995 08:55:06 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
Lines: 56
Message-ID: <3ut2pa$eoj@park.uvsc.edu>
References: <3ta683$ujm@newsflash.hol.gr> <3tur0n$7tt@park.uvsc.edu> <AMOSS.95Jul16184021@picton.cs.huji.ac.il>
NNTP-Posting-Host: hecate.artisoft.com

amoss@picton.cs.huji.ac.il (Amos Shapira) wrote:
]    ] Why BSD is not so  popular?
] 
]    You mean "Why don't DEC, Sun, Gould, Pyramid, Motorolla, USL,
]    Novell, etc., etc,, sell UNIX derived from BSD source code"?
] 
] DEC's "Digital UNIX" ("the OS formerly known as OSF/1", "Ni!!") is
] based on Mach, even though it has some feel of BSD (there are still
] fragmants of the format of the kernel configuration files! :-) I don't
] think Mach is based on BSD (is it?) (and DEC's main involvment with
] BSD is just because their VAX superminis were the standard platform
] used at UCB)

There's BSD code in there.  It has UFS, for one.

] USL - Unix Systems(?) Labs?  That's AT&T SysV, isn't it?  Weren't they
] bought by USL?

USL UNIX is the only name I could come up with for the SVR4
still sold by the AT&T personal systems division (the former NCR).
It's also what it happens to claim for the copyright when it boots.

] Sun - Up to SunOS 4.* (aka "Solaris 1.*") their use of BSD was the
] main reason I liked to work on their platforms, but alas they
] converted to SysVr4 (no religious wars please, I like SGI IRIX too,
] but NOT what I've seen on Solaris 2 so far)

SunOS >= 5.x (Solaris) is SVR4 and therfore arguably >50% BSD
derived code.

] Novell?? - Didn't they buy USL (SysV)?  Do they have another,
] BSD-based, OS?

Novell's UNIX is UnixWare, which is the productized SVR4; it's
different than vanilla SVR4.

] You forgot IBM's RT - don't remember what exactly was the name of the
] OS but it was definatly a BSD 4.[23]+ (Tahoe?) machine.  About the only
] thing from "back then" I liked in IBM's products.

The RT isn't still around; the others are.  8-).

]    They do.  BSD is immensely "popular", not that this is a popularity
]    contest or anything.
] 
] Nope, it isn't.  But I suppose it is legitimate of people to wonder
] "what should they learn".

Yeah, it is.  I took the initial "as popular" to refer to Linux.


                                        Terry Lambert
                                        terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.