Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 18:04:37 -0800 (PST) From: Chris Coleman <chris@bbcc.ctc.edu> To: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com> Cc: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD early days... (fwd) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990222175945.12852A-100000@bbcc.ctc.edu> In-Reply-To: <199902222349.QAA06336@mt.sri.com>
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If someone is would like it, I have an opening for the "All Things BSD" column in the Daemon News. The Column would be about Early BSD, humorous technical stories of BSD, and what ever else you felt like putting in there. We generally have two authors per column, and they alternate months. We have one author alread, and need the 2nd. Anyone who has participated in this thread would be a good candidate. If anyone is interested: editor@daemonnews.org #the Editors. article@daemonnews.org #send all articles to be published. -Chris Coleman. On Mon, 22 Feb 1999, Nate Williams wrote: > > At this time there was what was called the "Patch kit". The patch kit > > was an "official" (ha!) set of patches that when applied to a 386BSD > > standard system, produced a system that was approximatly at the state that > > ref.tfs.com was at. Terry Lambert, Rod Grimes, and Chris Demitriou (sp?) > > were names that I remember being associated with the patchkit. > > (possibly > > also Nate Williams and Jordan hubbard). Charlse Hannum and some of the > > (later NetBSD) crew were also pretty visible. > > As those involved (feel free to pipe up Jordan), the patchkit was > originally Terry's. > > I did the 'Bug Report', which mostly overlapped the patchkit, but was > much less organized, so Terry handed the reins of the patchkit off to > me. > > Then, I got overwhelmed and handed it off to Jordan, who handed it off > to Rod, and ultimately we all banded together to form FreeBSD after Bill > abandoned us. > > AFAIK, Chris never made any public patches, but he was the sys. admin on > 'agate', the 386BSD distribution site, and later started up 'NetBSD' > after Chris got angry with Bill. Hannum didn't get involved much until > after NetBSD got off the ground. > > > Some time in 1992 NetBSD formed as a separate organisation due to > > differences of opinion with Bill Jolitz. Some of us felt that the split > > was bad and decided to TRY maintain a position that was compatible with > > that of Bill Jolitz, however Bill at that time decided tha the distraction > > of being mentor to the entire group was stopping him from getting anything > > done, and decided that he needed to retire from "public life" to work on a > > new version of 386BSD (the fabled 0.2). Shortly after this his father died > > which left him with a lot of work to do with his father's affairs and > > basically took him right out of the picture. > > This is all news to me. I remember Lynn yelling at me on the phone > telling me how I was a traitor to Bill after we decided to re-release > 0.1 with the patchkit bundled in it. > > > He later returned with a new version of 386BSD > > He *NEVER* released a new version of 386BSD. His book is still based > mostly on the original 0.1 release. > > > but by then things had progressed too far with NetBSD > > and by then FreeBSD for it to keep the mainstream position. Bill had some > > good ideas for changes in the kernel some of which are still not > > implemented anywhere that I know of. > > Anywhere. :) > > > In 1993 (I think) Those of us that had been hoping to keep working > > with Bill eventually had to give up due to Bills dissappearance, and > > as Bill had a trademark on 386BSD which he wished to use for some > > books etc. we had to find another name. FreeBSD was chosen. > > FreeBSD never existed as anything but a re-rolled 386BSD until the > Bill/Lynn blowup, at which point a number of us felt it was best to put > as much distance between Bill/Lynn as possible, hence the new project > name. > > > With the emergence of FreeBSD, came the connection with Walnut Creak > > cdrom. They hired Rod Grimes to ride hurd on it full time, and the new > > group decided that a CVS server was the way to go for tracking the > > software. Thus focus shifted from ref.tfs.com to Freefall.cdrom.com > > which later also became freefall.freebsd.org. > > ref died a *LONG* time before freefall ever came into being. You left > TFS, and a bunch of corrupted backups ended up at Montana State > University. I tried to sort through these, and finally gave up when it > became obvious that the backups were trashed. > > So, I volunteered my box (bsd.coe.montana.edu) and MSU donated 4GB of > disk space and the project continued. However, it became apparent that > MSU's 56K link was severely inadequate for the task, so Jordan (who > lived in Ireland at the tim) approached Bob Bruce @ Walnut Creek who > graciously donated hardware and allowed the project to use (abuse) it's > T1 to help co-ordinate the project. > > J.T. Conklin actually helped us setup the CVS repository. Many of the > scripts we are using as well as a number of BSD speedups are based on > his early work. > > > Rod was (still is) a skydiver and thus the names of some of the machines.. > > freefall, and thud. After Rod left to persue his own businesses, those who > > followed didn't keep up the skydiving references. > > > > I left TFS in March 1993. When I left, ref became hard to maintain, > > and fell out of general use. It's functions were generally switched to > > freefall, and it was shut down sometime in June I believe after a > > catastrophic disk crash. > > Ahh, the reason the dumps were trashed was because the disk was > trashed. Now I know. :) > > > It was rebuilt when I returned on contract later > > that year, but by then it had returned to the position of my personal > > sandbox. > > > > hope that helps > > (gee I should post this somewhere..) > > do you mind if I mail this to 'chat' or something? > > > > Nate > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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