Path: sparky!uunet!darwin.sura.net!mips!atha!canada!lyndon From: lyn...@ampr.ab.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Funding 4.4BSD Development Message-ID: <79@ampr.ab.ca> Date: 25 Jun 92 21:52:28 GMT Organization: Alberta Packet Radio Network Lines: 19 Before everyone throws their money away trying to keep CSRG alive, consider that the way every gov't institution works makes it impossible for us to "fund" the CSRG. Any money sent to UCB goes into the general revenue fund (at least that's the way it works at every gov't and post-secondary institution I have dealt with). It would be damned near impossible to work something out to get the money directly into CSRG unless you had enough of it to make the Regents or the Governing Council sit up and take notice. Note that a few hundred thousand dollars probably won't even make them blink. It you want to see BSD continue as a living entity, take your money down to the BSDI folks and exchange it for a distribution tape. At this point BSDI and CSRG aren't really that different. Yes, BSDI is in it for the bucks, but then again BSD from UCB was never really "free" either. We payed via the license fee, and the money that lets UCB operate to begin with doesn't come out of thin air. TANSTAAFL.
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!ames!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu! fcom.cc.utah.edu! gateway.univel.com!gateway.novell.com!thisbe!terry From: t...@thisbe.npd.Novell.COM (Terry Lambert) Subject: Re: Funding 4.4BSD Development Message-ID: <1992Jun26.021947.28286@gateway.novell.com> Sender: terry@thisbe (Terry Lambert) Nntp-Posting-Host: thisbe.eng.sandy.novell.com Organization: Novell NPD -- Sandy, UT References: <79@ampr.ab.ca> Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 02:19:47 GMT Lines: 59 In article <7...@ampr.ab.ca>, lyn...@ampr.ab.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) writes: |> At this point BSDI and CSRG aren't really that different. Yes, BSDI is |> in it for the bucks, but then again BSD from UCB was never really "free" |> either. We payed via the license fee, and the money that lets UCB operate |> to begin with doesn't come out of thin air. 1) CSRG sources are freely redistributable. 2) BSDI sources are a trade from one encumbered set of files (from AT&T) to another set of encumbered files (from BSDI). 3) The great attraction of CSRG is that I can freely distribute my hacks of their sources and thus look like a nice guy (8-)). Since I have SVR3.* and SVR4.* source licenses, I don't care about getting sources to BSDI's ideas of the "correct" files; I can have CSRG's, no problem; what advantage does BSDI give me? With sources, I can be my own support service. 4) As you say, given that UCB is a publicly supported University, and we paid to let UCB operate in the first place. Question: How does it make sense to pay BSDI, yet again for the same service? 5) Everyone who has paid a license fee for the BSD sources, which has, lately, been more of a Kermit style distribution charge/donation, has put money toward the work on BSD, work which BSDI is directly benefitting from in their product. 6) As has already been pointed out, and probably will be again, BSDI is rumored to be planning to provide source for only those items which have been, by virtue of "copyleft", required to be freely available: ie: a binary BDSI/source BSD distribution. 7) BSDI has benefitted from the efforts of a large number of people in this group, who have also provided code, "CSRG style", without hooks on use in a commercial product. I am not against anyone making a buck from public code which they have modified and put effort into; I am simply pointing out the glaring holes in your argument. BSDI and CSRG are certainly different. For what I would use the source for (teaching and reference, as well as a basis for derivative works), BSDI simply doesn't cut it. It's place is as a fine product to keep BSD alive in the marketplace as a viable alternative to megaconstructs like SVR4, and for the individual tinker and contract diff-provider for embedded applications requiring a changed UNIX kernel. Mt. XINU has done this sort of thing for a long time. If BSD UNIX is to be a commercial success, BSDI certainly offers impossible-to-live-without-in-commercial-UNIX *support*! But I`m not going to buy it if I can't, 1 year down the pike, show everything to a CS student, or have an undergraduate port it to a VAXStation 3100 as a 3 quarter project. My two cent's worth (making a total of four, for today), Terry Lambert terry_lamb...@gateway.novell.com t...@icarus.weber.edu --- Disclaimer: Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
Path: sparky!uunet!usc!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!pasteur! hermes.Berkeley.EDU!bostic From: bos...@hermes.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Funding 4.4BSD Development Message-ID: <1992Jun29.175021.8142@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 29 Jun 92 17:50:21 GMT References: <1992Jun25.234031.6037@kithrup.COM> < VIXIE.92Jun27111848@adelphi.pa.dec.com> <57926@mimsy.umd.edu> Sender: n...@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU (NNTP Poster) Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 37 Nntp-Posting-Host: hermes.berkeley.edu Let me talk about the who/what/where of NET/2, so that we don't start more rumors about who did what to whom in a vicious, but evil plot N years ago. Also, my memory is as bad as most people's and worse than some, and I'm not going to paw through email from four years ago until the subpoena's in my hands. So, these are my recollections, worth what you're paying for them, and they're probably not too far wrong. The freely redistributable pieces of 4.3BSD-Reno were placed on-line by UUNET. I don't remember when or where the deal got made, but Rick Adams and John Gilmore and I, and I'm sure some other people, talked it over, thought it was a good idea and did it. Since there wasn't a freely redistributable release available from the University at the time, there's no issue as to when UUNET made it available. The NET/1 release was made in November of 1988, and was immediately placed online by UUNET. The Net/2 release was made in July of 1991. UUNET did not immediately place it online, and there are two reasons for the delay. First, since UUNET is reachable from non-domestic sites, Rick had to wait until the GTDA license for the NET/2 release was approved. (Don't ask me about all the ramifications of various licenses, it's amazingly complex. Suffice it to say that the GTDA license made NET/2 freely redistributable outside of the US.) I got the GTDA license in November of 1991, so there's no way that Rick should have placed NET/2 online before then. Second, the CSRG explicitly asked Rick to not place NET/2 online or include it in the UUNET source distributions for an unspecified time so that we could make some money from the release. Rick agreed to this request. Once other organizations (who refused our request to not make NET/2 part of their distributions for a few months) started making NET/2 available, Rick quite reasonably wanted to do so as well, and we agreed. --keith
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!pasteur!hermes.Berkeley.EDU!bostic From: bos...@hermes.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Funding 4.4BSD Development Message-ID: <1992Jul1.003912.16115@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 1 Jul 92 00:39:12 GMT Article-I.D.: pasteur.1992Jul1.003912.16115 References: <18729@plains.NoDak.edu> <1992Jun27.160309.21709@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg> <1992Jun30.103533.5424@eng.ufl.edu> Sender: n...@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU (NNTP Poster) Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 36 Nntp-Posting-Host: hermes.berkeley.edu First, we want to express our appreciation for all the suggestions that have been made in this newsgroup for various ways of funding the CSRG. We haven't been able to respond to everyone personally, but we want you to know that we appreciate your offers and the good wishes that accompanied them! Thanks! Second, I don't think it would be a good idea for me to work on an effort to fund the CSRG through net contributions, for several reasons. To be perfectly honest, I don't have the time, and it's not something at which I'd be very good. If someone else makes the effort, however, we will gladly accept any funding that will enable us to make 4.4BSD cleaner and more stable. As Sean Fagan said, we can be funded as a "gift", which means that the University gets approximately 2% of the money and we get the rest. So, any contributions will go directly to pay for work on 4.4BSD. Also, since the University is a tax exempt non-profit institution, any gift is tax deductible. The letter accompanying the contribution should say be something like: Enclosed is a gift in the amount of ___ which is given to CSRG as an unrestricted gift to further its research goals. The check itself should be made out to ``The Regents of the University of California'', and mailed to: Keith Bostic 457 Evans Hall Dept. of EECS University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 We'll post to this newsgroup and let you know how this rather unorthodox funding effort works! Keith Bostic