4.4 bsd will include OSI support

[Marshall Rose]

Mumble, mumble.

     Although the article was mostly accurate, a couple of the details
     were wrong.  I know 'cause I was one of the people Karyl Scott
     talked to when writing the article.

     First off, Berkeley has not stated what the next BSD release will
     be called.  Although the name "4.4" is a possibility, it could just
     as easily be something else (like "4.3c").

     Next, you imply that DoD is funding the development of vendor
     products to allow TCP/IP and OSI interoperate.  WRONG.  What the
     article said is that the project is working on a couple of
     application-layer gateways, but that some vendors are also working
     on other things, like transport-level bridges.

     The article says that testing will occur before the release of the
     OSI code.  Unlikely.  My guess is that one release will go out with
     only partial testing.  The rest will get tested after that release.
     The reason for this is that conformance test suites do not exist
     (but may soon) for all parts of all layers in the stack.

     Now, the article is sort of WRONG (but well-intentioned) when it
     says the networking code will be free.  For the OSI in the kernel,
     the code will be available under the usual Berkeley UNIX license.
     The stuff above the kernel will be donated to the ISO Development
     Environment, an openly-available implementaton of the OSI
     upper-layers.  ISODE is openly-available, but not public-domain.
     This means that 1) you pay a modest handling fee at one of the four
     world-wide distribution sites, usually around $300, 2) you never
     sign a license, but 3) you agree to hold everyone (particularly ME)
     harmless from anything bad that happens.

     By the way, it is not helpful to pool rumors.  Most rumors are just
     plain wrong.  It is better to get on the phone (like to the author
     of the article in question) and ask precisely what you want to
     know.  Of course, don't tell her that you called PC Week
     Connectivity a "rag" in public.

/mtr