Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!aipna!awb From: awb@ed.ac.uk (Alan W Black) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: 386BSD (was Re: MINIX on a 486?) Message-ID: Date: 15 Jun 91 13:34:19 GMT References: <13393@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1991Jun12.145309.29231@ukpoit.co.uk> <1991Jun13.165309.20341@mathrt0.math.chalmers.se> Sender: news@aipna.ed.ac.uk Reply-To: awb@ed.ac.uk (Alan W Black) Organization: Dept of AI, Edinburgh University, UK Lines: 65 In-reply-to: d6mbeng@dtek.chalmers.se's message of 13 Jun 91 16:53:09 GMT I'm not sure if this thread should still be in this group but ... >In article <1991Jun13.165309.20341@mathrt0.math.chalmers.se> d6mbeng@dtek.chalmers.se (Magnus Bengtsson) writes: >In article <1991Jun12.145309.29231@ukpoit.co.uk> paul@ukpoit.co.uk (Paul Wood) writes: >>In article awb@ed.ac.uk (Alan W Black) writes: >>>As someone else said BSD will be available >>>"soon" for almost free. (Someone disagreed but I'm not sure why -- the >>>"soon" bit is the most arguable). >>My guess is the "almost free" part is the problem. I understand that it >>is not going to be free to private individuals. In fact is going to be >>very expensive compared to Minix. Can someone clarify? > >What I heard (or, rather, read somewhere -- I forget where) is that >386BSD will be distributed as part of 4.4BSD in source form only. > >Since it is not free from AT&T code, you will need a source code >license from AT&T, if you want 386BSD. And that is *NOT* free -- it is >not even cheap by any standards... > >Could someone who actually KNOWS the facts confirm or deny this? As I understand it there are three contenders for a "free" BSD Unix these are BSD 4.4 "detox", MACH 3.0 (from CMU), and GNU (from FSF) all of which will have 386 PC versions. All three of these projects have a long term goal to produce "free" software in the sense that you will be able to copy and distribute the source without requiring to pay a fee or sign a licence. More precisely they will be free of AT&T source. At present parts of each of these systems are already "free" in that you can freely ftp them from various sites. However, I doubt Berkeley and CMU will be very interested in distributing systems to end users (FSF are probably more interested in that). It will be up to other companies to take 4.4 and MACH and repackage then and sell to end users (Mt. Xinu already does this). This redistribution still costs money, packaging up software, manuals, support, media etc costs so these will not be free of charge but should at least be cheap. Those of us who are on the internet (or similar) will probably be able get the source for free, and probably bootstrap binaries too (as someone is bound to make binaries available by ftp). So there will be a "free" BSD Unix which will not require the expensive AT&T source licence. The problem is when. The MACH kernel is already available, but the higher levels of the system are still restricted. Berkeley has already freed lots of code both in the kernel and in the utilities but it seems to be a fairly random cut. GNU already has many utilities and have started building a kernel based on MACH 3.0 and (they say "perhaps") initially using some BSD4.4 code. Although they all advertise a complete system "real soon now" I suspect it will be at least a year before that happens -- perhaps earlier if you are willing to alpha test the GNU system. This still leaves MINIX as the only Unix system in source form readily available to the masses, and it is likely to remain so for at least some time. Even when these other systems come out, MINIX will still have a place. Its likely to remain the cheapest (unless you have internet access), run on smaller machines and definitely be the most suitable for teaching. Alan Alan W Black 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh, UK Dept of Artificial Intelligence tel: (+44) -31 650 2713 University of Edinburgh email: awb@ed.ac.uk