A long time ago, various companies contributed to an operating system
that came to be called UNIX.
ATT (yup the telephone company) was a major research company doing this
as were several others. As each company released their version, that
became known as the "such-and-such" flavor or distribution. The next
comes from Apple's site:
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BSD is the Berkeley Standard Distribution. In the early 1980s,
the University of California at Berkeley was a major center of focus of
UNIX activity. They adapted AT&T's System III and provided more
sophisticated process management and network functionality. They
distributed their version of UNIX, called the Berkeley Standard
Distribution, for what amounted to the cost of goods. This, in turn,
was widely adapted by academia and turned into the source material for
further innovations by companies such as Sun Microsystems. Darwin
incorporates elements of the BSD 4.4 distribution, which provide file
system support, network services, symmetric multiprocessing support,
and multi-threading facilities.
======
BSD started out as a class project to see if they could do it. It was a
success, I would venture to say. (While most Linux users think software
should be free regardless, if you have ever had to work in UNIX, you
wold know that a copy of a UNIX distribution costs a lot, waaaaaaay
more than a new G4 maxed out with every possible bell and whistle
avaialble with all of the cool softwares). The BSD project was an
attempt to make a UNIX for free, so the academics could run it.
Jerry
On Wednesday, January 1, 2003, at 12:55 PM, Mledie at aol.com wrote:
> Lee, today you are a master in explanation. Now I know where to drink
> my
> Cocoa. I am so glad you gave the whole picture. I can grasp that and
> will
> save it for the time I approach OSX in awe. But just tell me what BSD
> stands for. Marta
>
>
> | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will
> | be January 28. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
>
>
>
| The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will
| be January 28. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
