*BSD News Article 7927


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From: gab10@griffincd.amdahl.com (Gary A Browning)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Solaris 1.1 vs. Solaris 2.0 (BSD vs AT&T)
Message-ID: <6dWM02Mp2bpe01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>
Date: 17 Nov 92 17:23:52 GMT
References: <kzin.721442926@cc.gatech.edu> <BxLz6x.EL7@cs.uiuc.edu> <1992Nov13.232053.7061@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu> <1992Nov16.075931@eklektix.com>
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In article <1992Nov16.075931@eklektix.com>, rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick
Dunn) writes:
 
> >...So, without someone to carry that torch, BSD will slowly die.  
> 
> On the face of it, it's true--**IF** nobody picks up the torch from
> CSRG,
> BSD will die.  But that's an "if pigs had wings" argument...the issue
> is
> not whether there is someone to pick up the torch, but which of the
> several
> possibilities will be the one to carry it.

Actually, the issue is what the user community *believes* is going to happen.
Significant damage has already been done (CSRG dropping the project without
another group already signed up to support it).  Few businesses, would purchase
an O/S with such an uncertain future, no matter how good it is.  BSDI and
386bsd will keep BSD alive in the academic world as O/S learning tools,
but as a commercial product, BSD *is* definitely dying.

My understanding is that, many of BSD's contributions to Unix have been
adopted in whole or in part into the SysVr4 O/S (where it has not conflicted
with POSIX or SysVr3).  So in a sense, BSD lives on.
                                                
-- 
Gary Browning        | Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a
		     | great idea hits you, and just before you realize
                     | what is wrong with it.