University of California, Berkeley. Computer Systems Research Group

Organizational History

AT&T's Bell Labs began development on the UNIX operating system in 1969. In 1973 an early release was distributed free-of-charge to a number of educational and research institutions, including UC Berkeley. Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) began as a UNIX derivative, created by researchers and students at the University of California, Berkeley, as supplements to the UNIX operating system developed at AT&T's Bell Labs.

Between 1977-1980, UC Berkeley released four software distributions. While the first two releases (known as 1BSD and 2BSD) contained mostly additions to AT&T's UNIX architecture, the next release, 3BSD was a full-fledged operating system, although it still depended heavily on AT&T's proprietary UNIX source code.

In 1980, based on the success of the 3BSD operating system, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) agreed to provide UC Berkeley with funding to development a standard UNIX platform for future DARPA research. The Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) was formed to lend greater organization to the existing effort. From 1980-1992, a number of major software distributions were released by the CSRG, including 4BSD, 4.1BSD, and 4.2BSD, as well as Net/1 and Net/2.

Over time, less and less of the operating system depended upon the original AT&T source code. By the release of Net/2 in 1991, CSRG developers believed that it was no longer necessary for users of their operating system to also buy UNIX licenses from AT&T, which had been a requirement in earlier releases. AT&T disagreed, and in 1992 (the same year BSD was ported to the Intel 80386 architecture) they sued BSDi, a corporation founded by several former members of CSRG which had distributed, sold licenses to, and provided commercially support for a version of the BSD operating system. AT&T claimed BSDi's distribution included proprietary code and trade secrets. Soon after, AT&T filed a second suit, against the University of California. Following Novell's purchase of the AT&T subsidized laboratory that specialized in UNIX in 1993, the suit was settled in 1994. As part of the settlement, two forms of 4.4BSD were released in June of that year: the freely distributable 4.4BSD-Lite containing no AT&T source code, and 4.4BSD-Encumbered, available only to those who had purchased AT&T licenses.

In 1995, following the release of 4.4BSD-Lite Release 2, the Computer Systems Research Group was dissolved, ending development of BSD at UC Berkeley. Although official university development halted in 1995, a number of unaffiliated user groups around the world continued to develop BSD code under a variety of projects, including FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

Chronology

• 1969: AT&T's Bell Labs begins to develop the UNIX operating system under the direction of Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson.
• 1973: Bell Labs distributes earliest version of UNIX operating system along with the source code. It is free to academic and research institutions.
• 1974: Under the direction of Professor Bob Fabry, UC Berkeley orders and installs Version 4 UNIX on its first UNIX-ready computer system, a PDP-11/45.
• 1977: Graduate Student Bill Joy assembles and distributes tapes containing the first Berkeley Software Distribution (1BSD), an add-on to Version 6 UNIX.
• 1978: Second Berkeley Software Distribution (2BSD) is released. First VAX system capable of running the UNIX 32/V operating system is installed at UC Berkeley.
• 1979: Third Berkeley Software Distribution (3BSD) is released. Although it owes much to the initial port of UNIX to the VAX architecture, UNIX/32V, it is the first complete BSD operating system developed and distributed by the University of California Berkeley. AT&T begins to sell UNIX commercially UC Berkeley becomes new center of non-commercial UNIX research.
• 1980: Success of 3BSD prompts Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to provide UC Berkeley with funding for the development of a standard UNIX platform for future DARPA research. Bob Fabry founds the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at UC Berkeley. Fourth Berkeley Software Distribution (4BSD), containing numerous improvements to the 3BSD operating system, is released by CSRG in October.
• 1981: 4.1BSD is released in June.
• 1982: Bill Joy leaves CSRG to co-found Sun Microsystems. BSD daemon mascot, a creation of Marshall Kirk Mckusick, first appears on covers of printed materials distributed by USENIX.
• 1983: 4.2BSD released in August. It contains a modified version of BBN's preliminary TCP/IP implementation, as well as the new Berkeley Fast File System created by Marshall Kirk McKusick.
• 1986: 4.3BSD released in June. Following release, a decision is made to move away from VAX platform.
• 1989: Networking Release 1 (Net/1) is released. It is the first UC Berkeley-developed operating system that does not require users to obtain a separate license from AT&T.
• 1991: Networking Release 2 (Net/2) is released following an eighteen month effort led by BSD developers Keith Bostic, Mike Karels, and Marshall Kirk Mckusick to replace all AT&T elements of the BSD operating system, which would allow the entire system to be freely redistributable. All but 6 files are free of AT&T code at time of release.
• 1992: BSD is ported to the Intel 80386 architecture. AT&T sues BSDI, a group which distributes a commercially supported version of BSD, claiming BSDI's distribution includes proprietary code and trade secrets. AT&T sues the University of California, Berkeley.
• 1993: Novell purchases the AT&T subsidiary lab specializing in UNIX.
• 1994: University reaches settlement with Novell. 4.4BSD released in June in two forms, the freely distributable 4.4BSD-Lite containing no AT&T source, and 4.4BSD-Encumbered, available only to those who have purchased AT&T licenses.
• 1995: 4.4BSD-Lite Release 2 marks final release from UC Berkeley. Computer Systems Research Group dissolves, ending development of BSD at UC Berkeley. Unaffiliated user groups continue to develop BSD code under a variety of projects, including FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

From the guide to the Berkeley Software Distribution records, bulk 1974-2005, (The Bancroft Library)