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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!agate!ames!pasteur!hermes.Berkeley.EDU!bostic From: bostic@hermes.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Funding 4.4BSD Development Message-ID: <1992Jun29.175021.8142@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 29 Jun 92 17:50:21 GMT Article-I.D.: pasteur.1992Jun29.175021.8142 References: <1992Jun25.234031.6037@kithrup.COM> <VIXIE.92Jun27111848@adelphi.pa.dec.com> <57926@mimsy.umd.edu> Sender: nntp@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU (NNTP Poster) Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 37 Nntp-Posting-Host: hermes.berkeley.edu Let me talk about the who/what/where of NET/2, so that we don't start more rumors about who did what to whom in a vicious, but evil plot N years ago. Also, my memory is as bad as most people's and worse than some, and I'm not going to paw through email from four years ago until the subpoena's in my hands. So, these are my recollections, worth what you're paying for them, and they're probably not too far wrong. The freely redistributable pieces of 4.3BSD-Reno were placed on-line by UUNET. I don't remember when or where the deal got made, but Rick Adams and John Gilmore and I, and I'm sure some other people, talked it over, thought it was a good idea and did it. Since there wasn't a freely redistributable release available from the University at the time, there's no issue as to when UUNET made it available. The NET/1 release was made in November of 1988, and was immediately placed online by UUNET. The Net/2 release was made in July of 1991. UUNET did not immediately place it online, and there are two reasons for the delay. First, since UUNET is reachable from non-domestic sites, Rick had to wait until the GTDA license for the NET/2 release was approved. (Don't ask me about all the ramifications of various licenses, it's amazingly complex. Suffice it to say that the GTDA license made NET/2 freely redistributable outside of the US.) I got the GTDA license in November of 1991, so there's no way that Rick should have placed NET/2 online before then. Second, the CSRG explicitly asked Rick to not place NET/2 online or include it in the UUNET source distributions for an unspecified time so that we could make some money from the release. Rick agreed to this request. Once other organizations (who refused our request to not make NET/2 part of their distributions for a few months) started making NET/2 available, Rick quite reasonably wanted to do so as well, and we agreed. --keith