chet@mandrill.CWRU.EDU (Chet Ramey) (10/24/87)
I had heard rumors that 4.4 would be the last BSD Unix, but Darrell's
message was the first concrete evidence I got. Does anyone have
opinions (or concrete knowledge, that would be even better) about
why this is so? I can think of a few myself:
[ A little background on my information: I got it from local gurus with ]
[ close ties to Berkeley, and from the Berkeley UNIX Symposium LAST year. ]
[ I did not go this year, so if something has changed then one of those ]
[ who attended should fill us in. To the best of my knowledge, DoD has ]
[ chosen to fund MACH research at CMU. --DL ]
1. The principal UNIX researchers in the C.S.R.G. want to move on to
some other topic of interest.
2. DARPA has discontinued the funding that resulted in 4.2 BSD, so the
sources of money are drying up.
3. Another thing that Darrell mentioned: DEC isn't really cooperating
with Universities and researchers like they used to in that they
aren't releasing specs to the new BI bus machines (8200/8300...), so
BSD won't run on any of them. I saw that Chris Torek ported (or
is/was in the process of porting) 4.3 to the 8250, perhaps this could
result in versions of BSD running on the 8200 and 8300 series, which
offer "UNIBUS support for hardware investment protection"?
Some other questions:
1. Will SUN and DEC pick up the slack, and continue to offer a
BSD-flavored UNIX, or will everything converge to System V?
[ Not likely. If you look, both are providing System V compatibility in ]
[ the more recent releases of their BSD variants. ]
2. Why isn't AT&T marketing any research UNIXs?
(My opinion is that they want to offer a unified product line
around Sys V, and incorporate any innovations that result from
research UNIX into System V. Is that the consensus?)
[ If I can be skeptical, marketing and research are opposing concepts. ]
[ Marketing wants a stable, uniform interface for the MAJORITY of the ]
[ customer base; Research, by definition wants to look at new things. ]
Chet Ramey
Internet: chet@mandrill.cwru.edu
UUCP: {...}!cbosgd!mandrill!chet
BITNET: ramey@cwru20
"The difference between art and science is that science is what we
understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything
else."
D. E. Knuthkludge@pyr.gatech.edu (Scott Dorsey) (10/25/87)
In article <4164@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> chet@mandrill.CWRU.EDU (Chet Ramey) writes: >I had heard rumors that 4.4 would be the last BSD Unix, but Darrell's >message was the first concrete evidence I got. Does anyone have >opinions (or concrete knowledge, that would be even better) about >why this is so? I can think of a few myself: I know that Berkeley is starting to phase out their own Unix. The new vaxen that they are getting all have Ultrix, to maintain compatibility with their workstations. This is a bad sign... -- Scott Dorsey Kaptain_Kludge SnailMail: ICS Programming Lab, Georgia Tech, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 Internet: kludge@pyr.gatech.edu uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,rutgers,seismo}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge
jordan%zooks@ADS.ARPA (Jordan Hayes) (10/27/87)
Scott Dorsey <kludge@pyr.gatech.edu> writes:
I know that Berkeley is starting to phase out their own Unix.
The new vaxen that they are getting all have Ultrix, to
maintain compatibility with their workstations. This is a bad
sign...
Be careful about generalizations here. "Berkeley" could refer to any
of at least a half-dozen groups on campus that control many machines.
Some of the new machines that have come in (in particular, 8800s) run
Ultrix simply because that's all that's available. Some of the other
machines run Ultrix because there are bunches of uVaxen that need NFS
file service. I've seen no evidence that "Berkeley" is going through a
"phase out" of BSD on Vaxen.
Plunking NFS into 4.3 turned out to be quite a job (as Mt. Xinu found
out), and DEC's co-operation with hardware (BI specs, GPX drivers,
etc.) has been less than optimal. Work continues on BSD (if nothing
else, the papers Kirk and Mike presented last year and the Workshop
last week are evidence), but it's not clear what the future holds.
Anyone who went last week care to comment about stuff that went on?
/jordanchris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek ) (10/27/87)
In article <4164@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> chet@mandrill.CWRU.EDU (Chet Ramey) writes: >I had heard rumors that 4.4 would be the last BSD Unix .... It seems to me that a few years ago, I heard rumours that 4.3BSD would be the last BSD Unix. If the pattern holds, ten years from now we will be hearing that 4.9BSD will be the last BSD Unix. At any rate, onward: >Does anyone have opinions (or concrete knowledge, that would be >even better) about why this is so? I can think of a few myself: (Change `is' to `might be'.) >1. The principal UNIX researchers in the C.S.R.G. want to move on to >some other topic of interest. I cannot speak for them, but why should not other research topics include changes to 4BSD similar to those made between 4.1 and 4.2? >2. DARPA has discontinued the funding that resulted in 4.2 BSD, so the >sources of money are drying up. DARPA grants tend to live for five years, then move on. I gather that 4.2BSD was primarily funded by a DARPA networking grant. Yet the lack of any one grant does not mean that the project base will not continue to be used (as I have seen with a number of projects here at Maryland). More often, a project dies because the person or persons driving the whole thing move elsewhere. Whether and when this might happen, I cannot say. >3. Another thing that Darrell mentioned: DEC isn't really cooperating >with Universities and researchers like they used to ... (Did they ever? I have heard so many stories of reverse engineering. Yes, you can buy hardware descriptions of the 750 ... now.) >... aren't releasing specs to the new BI bus machines (8200/8300...), >so BSD won't run on any of them. I saw that Chris Torek ported (or >is/was in the process of porting) 4.3 to the 8250, Did; works; is not right yet (config needs much work; and see also my `one last thought' at the end of this). In any case, I did not have time to install it while I was at Berkeley last week. (We ran into a few bugs in their then-current Vax code....) >perhaps this could result in versions of BSD running on the 8200 >and 8300 series, The 8300 should be easy, being just a second CPU: Purdue has had master/slave processor code for years. Also, one UCB CSRG interest is in cleaning up the kernel for symmetric multiprocessing, to do which Berkeley would have to port 4BSD to a symmetric multiprocessor. This could conceivably lead to 8700/8800 support. [No promises though.] One problem with 8200 support is best described as `who wants 8200s?' In article <4167@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> kludge@pyr.gatech.edu (Scott Dorsey) writes further that >I know that Berkeley is starting to phase out their own Unix. The >new vaxen that they are getting all have Ultrix, to maintain compatibility >with their workstations. This is a bad sign... A rumour I heard says that (1) not everyone in UCB's Computing Center (which is separate from UCB CSRG) is happy with Ultrix, and (2) the person who ultimately decided to use Ultrix has moved elsewhere. Hence it is possible that UCB CC might not continue using Ultrix. I doubt it matters. I should also point out that you cannot boot a Microvax without getting Ultrix. We needed Ultrix for our 8250s so that we could bring them up far enough to copy 4.3 onto the disks and reboot. (Actually, as it happened, DEC never sent us boot media, and I had to construct an RX50 floppy `by hand' after figuring out how to use the 4.3 tape boot code to boot some standalone code I copied onto 9 track tape. We could only do that because someone else here had Ultrix binaries that worked on 8250s.) One last thought, before I move on to real work: The Computing Center here is considering using Ultrix on machines to be used by undergraduates. For all the arguments I could use against Ultrix on our research machines, I really cannot say that CSC would be doing the wrong thing. Ultrix is a supported product, and there are people who want supported products. I am not one such: I want things that *I* can fix, enhance, or alter in wierd and wonderful ways. But as I see it, the major difference between a commercial system and CSRG's work is that in commercial systems, the externals are the most important thing; in CSRG's work, the internals are the most important. If you intend to support 10 000 undergrads all bashing away, do you care whether the innards are elegant, or is the only thing that matters `does it work for them'? -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7690) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris
moran@yale-zoo-suned.arpa (William Moran) (10/29/87)
I am really interested in the status of future versions of BSD (I am a
devotee), but this looks like it may turn into a flame war of Ultrix
vs. BSDx.x (x element Z), but let's not. I'd rather hear what 4.4 will
do that 4.{2,3} didn't :)
Bill Moran
[ I agree completely. Let's talk about what's will (should) be. --DL ]
******************************** William Moran Jr. *************************
* Arpa: moran-william@yale.arpa or cs.yale.edu * Arioch, Arioch etc. *
* UUCP: {harvard,decvax,cmcl2}!yale!moran-william * 1. Nf3 ++/-- *
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****************************************************************************darrell@sdcsvax.UUCP (10/30/87)
[ OK, this is the last "No more BSD?" message. Let's move it along to ]
[ what's new and interesting. --DL ]
Has anyone else been around long enough to remember the rumours that
Edition 7 was to be the last Unix? Seems to be a regular event.
[ Actually that is somewhat true. Edition 7 was the last Bell Labs ]
[ research UNIX to be released. There's something like 10 sites not ]
[ part of Bell Labs that have Edition 8. ]
I can also remember certain adverts in the glossies:
"Here at (name deleted) we're working on the next version of Unix..."
And just imagine how this could have changed history:
Ken: Hey Dennis, this is a waste of time.
Dennis: You're right Ken, let's try something else instead.
(Apologies to ken and dmr...)
--
Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU) ACS: dave@astra.necisa.OZ.AU
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