Future at Berzerkeley

[Chris Torek]

In article <15407 at cup.portal.com> gregh at cup.portal.com (Greg S Hinton) writes:
>I've heard two conflicting predictions lately about the future of Unix
>development at Berkeley.  One school of thought says that CSRG has lost
>most of its funding (Dept. of Defense?) and so the evolution of BSD has
>come to an end; all their wonderful ideas will be absorbed into System V
>and the world will acheive homogeneous standardhood.

Hah.

>The other school of thought maintains that CSRG has only just begun; in
>fact, a version 4.4 BSD will soon be upon us with some pretty radical
>innovations.  And more will follow.

Hah again.

>Who's right?  Or is the truth -- as I suspect -- somewhere between those
>two extremes?

More or less.

4.4BSD% is already funded and in progress.  As I understand it, the
money is being laundered%% through NIST%% (nee NBS), and is intended for
ISO/OSI integration.  4.2BSD *was* DoD funded, for the purpose of
developing a widely-used TCP/IP implementation.  I guess someone
figured if 4.2BSD had such an effect, 4.4BSD could do the same for
OSI.
-----
%   Not an official name; `8BSD' or `9BSD' might be more appropriate.
%%  `Government is just like organized crime, only less efficient.'
    [author forgotten, if not persecuted by the government :-) ]
%%% As in `the Knights of NIST' (apologies to Python fans).
-----

CSRG is a University project; it works like all University projects:
it continues as long as someone maintains interest.  Where there is
sufficient interest, someone will find funds.  There is certainly more
to be done than just ISO development; it seems likely that there
will be a 4.5BSD.  I just hope no one starts numbering them `4.3
Release 2 Version 2'... :-)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris at mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris