On Friday, 28 April 2000 at 14:02:22 +0200, Havard.Eidnes@runit.sintef.no wrote:
>>> I would not call the BSD systems "derivatives of AT&T's UNIX".
>>> In fact, the entire point of the Lite stuff is that there is
>>> *no* derivation, in a legal/copyright sense, which is why BSD is
>>> allowed to exist.
>>
>> I wasn't talking in a legal or copyright sense.  A lot of the code
>> in BSD is also in System V, and Research UNIX editions 8 to 10
>> were derived from 4.1cBSD.  I think we can let this one stand.
>
> Well, that doesn't make BSD derived from AT&T UNIX -- in those cases
> it's the other way around, isn't it?

Well, that's a separate point.  But the more important fact, as shown
in http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/Images/unixtimeline.gif (which
doesn't show the correct derivation of the Eighth Edition), is that
BSD was derived from the Sixth and Seventh Editions of AT&T Research
UNIX.

>>> If you compare AT&T UNIX(tm) to BSD, in practice, the systems
>>> diverged from about V7 - BSD is more like V7 than it is like
>>> System III or V.
>>
>> That's why :-)
>
> If you still want to claim that BSD is derived from AT&T UNIX, I
> would probably add "research" between AT&T and UNIX, as in
>
>   In fact, the BSD operating systems are open source derivatives of
>   AT&T's research UNIX operating system, not clones.

That's more correct, yes, but the it would just confuse the target
audience, and it's not strictly wrong as it stands.

> However, at the moment, there is no AT&T code left in the freely
> available BSDs, so what makes it then a derivative?

The genealogy.

> Won't this statement perpetuate the misunderstanding that the freely
> available BSDs are still under threat of litigation from AT&T?

Well, that's stated elsewhere.

Greg
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