GNU and the BSD kernel

On 9/1/12 12:04 PM, Liam Proven wrote: In the very earliest days, they were talking about using Trix, which was developed at MIT. http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/users-guide/using_gnuhurd.html 1.3 History Richard Stallman (RMS) started GNUin 1983, as a project to create a complete free operating system. In the text of the GNU Manifesto, he mentioned that there is a primitive kernel. In the first GNUsletter, Feb. 1986, he says that GNU's kernel is TRIX, which was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. By December of 1986, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) had ?started working on the changes needed to TRIX? [Gnusletter, Jan. 1987]. Shortly thereafter, the FSF began ?negotiating with Professor Rashid of Carnegie-Mellon University about working with them on the development of the Mach kernel? [Gnusletter, June, 1987]. The text implies that the FSF wanted to use someone else's work, rather than have to fix TRIX. In [Gnusletter, Feb. 1988], RMS was talking about taking Mach and putting the Berkeley Sprite filesystem on top of it, ?after the parts of Berkeley Unix... have been replaced.? Six months later, the FSF is saying that ?if we can't get Mach, we'll use TRIX or Berkeley's Sprite.? Here, they present Sprite as a full-kernel option, rather than just a filesystem. In January, 1990, they say ?we aren't doing any kernel work. It does not make sense for us to start a kernel project now, when we still hope to use Mach? [Gnusletter, Jan. 1990]. Nothing significant occurs until 1991, when a more detailed plan is announced: