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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!soda.berkeley.edu!wjolitz From: wjolitz@soda.berkeley.edu (William F. Jolitz) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: FAQ_01. First Draft. Date: 13 Apr 1993 21:31:08 GMT Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association Lines: 124 Message-ID: <1qfbes$lmc@agate.berkeley.edu> References: <CGD.93Apr3193340@erewhon.CS.Berkeley.EDU> <1pplq5$f6b@agate.berkeley.edu> <1993Apr5.184733.26883@coe.montana.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu In article <1993Apr5.184733.26883@coe.montana.edu> nate@cs.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes: >In article <1pplq5$f6b@agate.berkeley.edu> wjolitz@soda.berkeley.edu (William F. Jolitz) writes: >> >>In article <CGD.93Apr3193340@erewhon.CS.Berkeley.EDU> cgd@erewhon.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Chris G. Demetriou) writes: >>>In article <9304032124.AA07711.cgdtry2@hrd769.brooks.af.mil> burgess@hrd769.brooks.af.mil (Dave Burgess) writes: >>>>1.8.5 Why shouldn't I get my distribution from UUNet? >>>> >>>there is no valid reason not to get it from uunet. >>> >>Don't get it from uunet. >> >>While the "no binaries" policy may have vanished (after all, they're making >>money off of anyone sucking it off anyways), the primary reason is still valid. >> >>Bill. > >No offense intended to Bill, but uunet has been, and continues to >provide many services for free, including downloading the 386BSD >distribution from any internet host. Also, some people don't have any >EASY way of dowloading the distribution, and uunet's 900 service is one >of many cost-effective ways of downloading the distribution. I don't >think politics should enter this discussion. > >DEC makes money, uunet makes money, so what? In the end, we all win. > >Let's try and keep politics out of this.. > >My thoughts, > Nate, Dave, Chris: Perhaps I'm not communicating concisely on this topic, so I'll take the time to do it justice. If any of you continue to have trouble with this, please call me directly and I'll explain in detail. We have not seen the last of the "legal" battles by any stretch. In fact, there is a considerable number of "quiet" battles underway at the moment, partly because of the good judge's decision. If you think they are all motivated out of altruism, you are very naive. And if you think that the outcome won't affect your access to this basic technology, stop reading this and go stick your head back into the ground. It would be wonderful to say that there's a group of cooperative people here all working to the same end with BSD -- after all, the region is so vast that we don't have enough people to throw at all of the interesting areas as it is -- there is room for all. Yet that has never happened. Instead, there has been a number of "pitched battles", various sides playing childish games to damage another side's funding/financing. Lawsuits have been started entirely on the basis of "well, if you're so ripped off, you'd better sue or else we won't believe your claims ..". Many relatively innocent people have walked into firestorms by accident, totally unaware of the intense conflict underway. Like an iceberg, it's 90 % hidden. Had I known this line of events would have occured, I don't know if I ever would have: * introduced Mike Karels to my 11/40 UNIX system in the Molecular Biology Department in the late 70's. * taken it upon myself to move Berkeley UNIX onto the 386 in 1989. -or- * help to save Berkeley UNIX from the doom of obscurity it was sinking into in the early 90's. There's quite a bit at stake at the moment, and from the attempts I've made at dealing with the combatants, I consider that the situation is more polarized than ever, that the degree of lobbying and rewriting of history is at an all time high. And for good reason: all of them are playing to win. And since "$"'s are the central goal here in winning, all sides would very much like a situation that they can profit from. Trouble is, each wants to be the sole beneficiary and the sole controlling influence. So they slant the telling of history as needed to support their conclusions. Not much of a surprise here. Now, you'd think that 386BSD would be outside of this "mud-wrestling". You'd think that a tiny, little system that evens the field and is available to all would be completely orthogonal to the process. It isn't. Instead, it graphically illustrates the stakes to all sides, and as it marches on to more improved stature, it applies pressure on all the parties at once to act reasonably and resolve the conflicts. It does this by standing alone. Which does not mean we have not entertained incoming fire from each of these wonderful groups. We have. That is why we don't recommend in our releases involvement with groups/companies that privately threaten or indirectly injure us, while publically proclaiming the opposite. These incidents are non-trivial, and are well-documented, and in some cases even witnessed. Even better, some members of the press have been silently noting them over the last few years. Indeed, we are even prohibited from working with the University on subsequent releases on their request, in writing. We are furnished no bug information from these other groups; indeed, they use bugs in 386BSD to justify their position. And they continue to attempt to play us off against the other sides. This is no game. If you happen to be on one of these sides, be my guest, cheer them on and listen lovingly to the lies they feed you. I have no trouble with this, you've a right to choose your own poison. However, don't expect us to upend the bottle with you. Perhaps we have been too quiet recently, since we've been busily working on a new release (more fun than answering this claptrap), but be forwarned: we are quite aware of the situation. But the releases will continue, and that's final. Bill. BTW, I sure hope that much of the sealed testimony is unsealed eventually. I'm sure it will make interesting reading. ABTW, as to the parenthetical comment about making money, that was just irony, in reference to that company's original "noodle-brained" reaction to 386BSD 0.0. They decided to make up a scare story about viruses to avoid needing to put up the release when I asked them to. After a few "go-rounds", where it was pointed out to them that a 20MB+ release download would makee them money after all, I gave up and sent people elsewhere. So it's ironic that they eventually opted for the money after all.