Ross Harvey <ross@ghs.com> writes:
> In about 1992, a system called 386BSD was developed which contained the
> free code from Berkeley plus newly developed x86 code, making a standalone
> free version. Development on 386BSD did not continue, but NetBSD and the
> commercial BSDI were the first projects formed to move forward with the
> BSD branch of development as the University's work was being discontinued.

This isn't quite right, and it's also misleading.

the freely available/redistributable "386BSD" released by Bill Jolitz
formed the basis of NetBSD (and the later freely-available BSD
systems).

BSDI's BSD/OS was not based on that freely-redistributable source, but
instead on earlier work (done, from what I understand, in part by
Bill) present in the 'master' BSD sources and released as a part of
the various open-source releases from berkeley (as well as much work
done on their own, of course).

Bill's freely-available 386BSD and BSDI's proprietary BSD/OS were the
first projects to move forward with the BSD branch of development UCB
got itself out of the picture.  Almost certainly BSDI's came first,
since if my memory serves me correctly, Bill was employed by them (for
some value of "them") doing BSD work on x86 PCs before he did the
freely-available "386BSD".  (at least, by my recollection of major
relevant public work.  There may have been other developments,
e.g. the net/2-based mach single-servers, but I don't know much about
them and don't consider them as relevant.  Also, there were other
private efforts to do similar things, but they never achieved much
prominence that i'm aware of.)

It's never been particularly clear to me what exactly the relationship
was between all the players and the x86 code in the 'master' BSD
sources was.  Certainly, there hase been plenty of acrimony around the
whole issue, and at this point i really just don't want to know.


Anyway, all of the above is just the information as best i know it.
It's been a long time since any of this stuff was relevant to me,
though, so i may have forgotten some things (and, of course, i may
never have had all of the right facts to begin with).  If anybody
knows the details any better, feel free to correct me.  8-)


cgd
-- 
Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org - http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.