1 Sep
2012
1 Sep
'12
3:12 p.m.
On 1 September 2012 21:13, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 9/1/12 12:04 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
Interesting stuff! Many thanks!
In the end, after /much/ more digging, I found this:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050727225542530
So candidates were TRIX, Sprite, BSD, UZI, then they tried to build
HURD and in the end it became Linux.
There's a line about tangled webs that springs to mind.
I can't help but wonder what would have happened had they gone with BSD.
I think that memoir might be a bit out though. It mentions BSD
4.4-Lite. That was 1994, I think, by which point Linux was up to
version 1.0 after 3y of hard work. Too late; doesn't fit the story.
Looking at the timings, I think Net/1 seems more likely - that was
4.3BSD, in 1989, the first unencumbered release and it fits the
chronology better.
If the GNU project had discarded most of Net/1 except the kernel, all
the userland and so on, there could have been a working free Unix by
about 1990. Linux would never have happened - Linux has said as much -
and maybe the Free/Net/Open BSD splintering wouldn't, either.
If there had been a viable free Unix out the door in the era of
Windows 3.1, before NT or 95, the computing world would have been
/very/ different, I think.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
IIRC in the fairly early stages of the GNU OS
project, they looked at
and considered using the kernel from BSD - 4.3 Net/1 or thereabouts, I
think. I'm looking for more detail or a web reference.
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: