Wikipedia

386BSD

Not to be confused withBSD/386,the commercial Unix sold by BSDi.

386BSD(also known as "Jolix"[2]) is a discontinuedoperating systembased on theBerkeley Software Distribution(BSD) that was developed by coupleLynneandWilliam Jolitz.[3]Released on March 17, 1992, it was the first fully operationalUnixoperating system to be completelyfree and open source.[4]

386BSD
386BSD Release 0.1 installer ( "Tiny 386BSD" )
DeveloperWilliam Jolitz
Lynne Jolitz
OS familyUnix
Working stateHistorical
Source modelOpen source
Initial release0.0[1]March 12, 1992;32 years ago(1992-03-12)
Latest release2.0 / August 2016;8 years ago(2016-08)
Repository
Platformsx86
LicenseBSD license
Succeeded byFreeBSD,NetBSD
Official website386bsd.org

386BSD ran onPC-compatiblecomputer systems based on the32-bitIntel 80386( "i386" )microprocessor,thus marking the first Unix on affordable home-class hardware.[5]Its innovations includedrole-based security,ring buffers,self-ordered configuration andmodular kerneldesign. Although 386BSD was short-lived, it served as the base forFreeBSDandNetBSDwhich began shortly afterwards.

History

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Further information:History of the Berkeley Software Distribution

386BSD was written mainly by Berkeley alumniLynne JolitzandWilliam Jolitz.William had considerable experience with prior BSD releases while at theUniversity of California, Berkeley(2.8 and 2.9BSD) and both contributed code developed at Symmetric Computer Systems during the 1980s, to Berkeley. William worked at Berkeley on porting 4.3BSD-Reno and later 4.3BSD Net/2 to the Intel 80386 for the university. 4.3BSD Net/2 was an incomplete non-operational release, with portions withheld by the University of California asencumbered(i.e. subject to anAT&T UNIXsource codelicense).

The port began in 1989 and the first, incomplete traces of the port can be found in 4.3BSD Net/2 of 1991. The port was made possible asKeith Bostic,partly influenced byRichard Stallman,[6]had started to remove proprietaryAT&Tout of BSD in 1988.[7]The port was first released to the public in March 1992 (version 0.0[1]) - based on portions of the 4.3BSD Net/2 release coupled with additional code (see "Missing Pieces I and II",Dr. Dobb's Journal,May–June 1992) - and in a much more usable version on July 14, 1992 (version 0.1[8]).

386BSD proved popular, with it receiving 250,000 downloads from theFTPserver it was hosted on.[9]It was helped partly by the porting process with code being extensively documented in a 17-part series written by Lynne and William inDr. Dobb's Journalbeginning in January 1991.[10]

FreeBSD and NetBSD

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After the release of 386BSD 0.1,[8]a group of users began collecting bug fixes and enhancements, releasing them as an unofficialpatchkit.Due to differences of opinion between the Jolitzes and the patchkit maintainers over the future direction and release schedule of 386BSD,[11]the maintainers of the patchkit founded theFreeBSDproject in 1993 to continue their work.[12]Around the same time, theNetBSDproject was founded by a different group of 386BSD users, with the aim of unifying 386BSD with other strands of BSD development into one multi-platform system. Both projects continue to this day.

Lawsuit

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Due to a lawsuit (UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. v. Berkeley Software Design, Inc.), some potentially so-calledencumberedsource was agreed to have been distributed within theBerkeley Software DistributionNet/2 from the University of California, and a subsequent release (1993, 4.4BSD-Lite) was made by the university to correct this issue. However, 386BSD,Dr. Dobb's Journal,and the Jolitzes were never parties to these or subsequent lawsuits or settlements arising from this dispute with the University of California, and continued to publish and work on the 386BSD code base before, during, and after these lawsuits without limitation. There has never been any legal filings or claims from the university, USL, or other responsible parties with respect to 386BSD. Finally, no code developed for 386BSD done by William Jolitz and Lynne Jolitz was at issue in any of these lawsuits.

Release 1.0

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In late 1994, a finished version 386BSD Release 1.0 was distributed byDr. Dobb's JournalonCD-ROMonly due to the immense size (600MB) of the release (the"386BSD Reference CD-ROM") and was a best-selling CDROM for three years (1994–1997). 386BSD Release 1.0 contained a completely newkerneldesign and implementation, and began the process to incorporate recommendations made by earlier Berkeley designers that had never been attempted in BSD.

Release 2.0

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On August 5, 2016, an update was pushed to the 386BSDGitHub repositoryby developer Ben Jolitz, named version 2.0.[13][14]According to the official website, Release 2.0 "built upon the modular framework to create self-healing components."[15]However, as of March 16, 2017,almost all of the documentation remains the same as version 1.0, and achangelogwas not available.

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All rights with respect to 386BSD and JOLIX are now held exclusively by William and Lynne Jolitz.[dubious–discuss]386BSD public releases ended in 1997 since code is now available from the many 386BSD-derivedoperating systemstoday, along with several derivatives thereof (such asFreeBSD,NetBSDandOpenBSD). Portions of 386BSD may be found in other open systems such asOpenSolaris.

Relationship with BSD/386

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386BSD is often confused withBSD/386which was a different project developed byBSDi,a Berkeleyspinout,starting in 1991. BSD/386 used the same 386BSD code contributed to the University of California on4.3BSD NET/2.Although Jolitz worked briefly forUUNET(which later spun out BSDi) in 1991, the work he did for them diverged from that contributed to the University of California and did not appear in 386BSD. Instead, William Jolitz gave regular code updates to Donn Seeley of BSDi for packaging and testing, and returned all materials when William left the company following fundamental disagreements on company direction and goals.

Further reading

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  • Jolitz, William F. and Jolitz, Lynne Greer: Porting UNIX to the 386: A Practical Approach, 17-part series inDr. Dobb's Journal,January 1991 – July 1992:[16][17]
    • Jan/1991: DDJ "Designing a Software Specification"
    • Feb/1991: DDJ "Three Initial PC Utilities"
    • Mar/1991: DDJ "The Standalone System"
    • Apr/1991: DDJ "Language Tools Cross-Support"
    • May/1991: DDJ "The Initial Root Filesystem"
    • Jun/1991: DDJ "Research and the Commercial Sector: Where Does BSD Fit In?"
    • Jul/1991: DDJ "A Stripped-Down Kernel"
    • Aug/1991: DDJ "The Basic Kernel"
    • Sep/1991: DDJ "Multiprogramming and Multiprocessing, Part I"
    • Oct/1991: DDJ "Multiprogramming and Multiprocessing, Part II"
    • Nov/1991: DDJ "Device Autoconfiguration"
    • Feb/1992: DDJ "UNIX Device Drivers, Part I"
    • Mar/1992: DDJ "UNIX Device Drivers, Part II"
    • Apr/1992: DDJ "UNIX Device Drivers, Part III"
    • May/1992: DDJ "Missing Pieces, Part I"
    • Jun/1992: DDJ "Missing Pieces, Part II"
    • Jul/1992: DDJ "The Final Step: Running Light with 386BSD"
  • Jolitz, William F. and Jolitz, Lynne Greer: Operating System Source Code Secrets Vol 1 The Basic Kernel, 1996,ISBN1-57398-026-9
  • Jolitz, William F. and Jolitz, Lynne Greer: Operating System Source Code Secrets Vol 2 Virtual Memory, 2000,ISBN1-57398-027-7

References

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  1. ^ab"386BSD 0.0 Release Notes".
  2. ^"386BSD".Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.2006-06-08.Retrieved2009-11-17.
  3. ^Chalmers, Rachel (2000-05-17)."The unknown hackers".Salon.Retrieved2023-11-24.
  4. ^"The creators of open-source 386BSD mark 15 year anniversary".The creators of open-source 386BSD mark 15 year anniversary.Retrieved2023-11-24.
  5. ^Bentson, Randolph."The Humble Beginnings of Linux".dl.acm.org.Retrieved2023-11-24.
  6. ^Sam Williams, "Free as in Freedom", March 2002, O'Reillychapter 9Archived2022-06-13 at theWayback Machine
  7. ^Eric S. Raymond. 2003.Origins and History of Unix, 1969-1995Archived2015-06-10 at theWayback MachineThe Art of Unix Programming. Chapter 2. History.
  8. ^ab"386BSD 0.1 Release Notes".
  9. ^"History of FreeBSD – Part 2: BSDi and USL Lawsuits".Klara Inc.2020-10-20.Retrieved2023-11-24.
  10. ^"386BSD".386bsd.org.Retrieved2023-11-24.
  11. ^"386BSD FAQ".William Jolitz, Lynne Jolitz.2014-01-13. Archived fromthe originalon 2014-01-13.Retrieved13 January2014.
  12. ^About the FreeBSD Project
  13. ^"After 22 Years, 386BSD Gets An Update - Slashdot".bsd.slashdot.org.9 October 2016.Retrieved2017-03-14.
  14. ^"386bsd/386bsd".GitHub.Retrieved2017-03-14.
  15. ^"386BSD Official website".Retrieved2021-03-13.
  16. ^"DDJ articles for 386BSD".
  17. ^"Porting Unix to the 386".
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