Editorial

386BSD Availability

By Jonathan Erickson
Dr. Dobb's Journal

March 1991

Nor were we surprised at the flood of inquiries regarding the status and availability of 386BSD. In fact, the general response can be summed up in two words -- more now!

According to Bill and Lynne Jolitz, the current status of the project is that 386BSD has been merged into the 4.3BSD-Reno version of the Berkeley Software Distribution, a work-in-progress version of the upcoming 4.4BSD release. Due to the research orientation of BSD, updated versions are made available from the University of California at Berkeley Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at scheduled intervals. What follows is the current official statement by the CSRG on this matter:

The 386BSD support will be available in February as part of an update of the 1989 Networking Release distribution. One very important fact to remember is, that although the 386BSD support itself is freely redistributable, much of the rest of the operating system and utilities require proprietary source licenses. Therefore, the February distribution will NOT be a complete system and cannot be booted or run on a 386 machine. This distribution will only require a Berkeley license and distribution fee. Previous fees were approximately $500, but the actual fee has not yet been determined.

The 4.4BSD release is scheduled for the middle of 1991, and additional, freely redistributable support will be made available at that time.

Since the CSRG is a research group, not all calls or e-mail can be promptly answered, so we'll try to keep you updated here in the magazine. CSRG can be contacted via e-mail at bsd.dist@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu, and e-mail is preferred for complete and accurate updates. If you have any specific questions or comments regarding 386BSD, Bill and Lynne ask that you contact them directly via e-mail at william@berkeley.edu or at uunet!william.

Copyright 1991