4 ms·

> The first copy we know to make it out of Berkeley was to Tom Ferrin at UCSF on the 9th of March in 1978. The license was signed on the 13th, the media was an

> The first copy we know to make it out of Berkeley was to Tom Ferrin at UCSF on the 9th of March in 1978. The license was signed on the 13th, the media was an 800 bpi tape, and on the tape was the “Unix Pascal system” and the “Ex text editor.” UCSF and UCB (as well as all the UC campuses and enterprises) are technically the same legal entity, incorporated by article 9 section 9 of the California constitution. Strange that they signed a license, when I worked for the regents we called them MOUs if it was a "contract" with another part of ourselves. When I started working for UCSD and found out we were licensing BSDi for some boxes I was sort of confused, like why don't we get that for free?

alberth 3y ago
> MOUs MOU = Memo of Understanding? (Which are typically non-binding but formalized acknowledgement of intent)
- tingletech 3y ago
  yes, we were told we could not contract with ourselves, so we had to do memorandums of understanding when we had revenue or other agreements between units. We also had a policy to follow state law (which does not apply to UC unless UC is specifically mentioned in the law).
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Is UC federal land or something?!
    - fredoralive 3y ago
      As noted above, the University of California is given special status by a section of California constitution, so it has special status through that. It's presumably clauses like that fact it's governed by the Regents "...subject only to such legislative control as may be necessary to insure the security of its funds and compliance with the terms of the endowments of the university..." that mean it isn't normally affected by new laws. (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CONS&sectionNum=SEC.%209.&article=IX https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...)
      - bwoodcock 3y ago
        And it has its own police, of course. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/fd/c8/c0fdc8612e07d7562b25c0046fb5a6b8.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/fd/c8/c0fdc8612e07d7562b25...
      - ihigxigcogc 3y ago
        All that said, parts of UC are indeed on federal land. Berkeley Lab, for instance.
        Cheer2171 3y ago
        Berkeley Lab / LBNL is on land owned by the UC, but all the buildings are owned by the feds. Livermore / LLNL is fully owned by the feds.
dekhn 3y ago
Tom was my manager for a while when I was a programmer at UCSF (~20 years after this event). He ran the Computer Graphics Lab which had a bunch of SGIs and DEC Alpha servers to do molecular modelling and I was 'the first linux guy in the group' (they asked me why I used linux when bsd existed). I remember him saying that whenever he licensed a commercial UNIX he insisted the contract include a section giving him access to the source code for the kernel ("because you never know when you will have to recompile the kernel or debug a kernel-space problem"). He's also known for presenting at USENIX on how to enable a hardware-disabled (but physically present) instruction on a cheaper version of the PDP/11. You'd cut a trace in the microcode and add a jumper wire, and presto! you had a fast floating point instruction that was previously disabled.
flyinghamster 3y ago
I always thought there was quite a contrast between UCB giving away BSD versus UCSD making its p-System a commercial product. In the short term, it was probably good for UCSD, but in the long term, the p-System is all but forgotten while BSD trucks along.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  We get to have its influence on Smalltalk, JVM, MSIL, DEX, and all those that think WASM is the first of its kind.
  - flyinghamster 3y ago
    Hmm, which came first, the p-System or ZIL? -checks- Add ZIL to that list as well, as the p-System dates to 1977 and ZIL to 1979.
- tingletech 3y ago
  I thought BSD being free was part of the consent decree from AT&T vs Regents. The technology transfer office would never sign off on open source license, even in the early 2000s. You would have to make and end run around them to office of general council to start a new open source project, once granting agencies started requesting open source. Even if you did end run around tech transfer, you could not use a license that mentioned anything about patents (UC does not want to give away patents, but giving away copy rights was permissible)

alberth 3y ago

> MOUs MOU = Memo of Understanding? (Which are typically non-binding but formalized acknowledgement of intent)

tingletech 3y ago
yes, we were told we could not contract with ourselves, so we had to do memorandums of understanding when we had revenue or other agreements between units. We also had a policy to follow state law (which does not apply to UC unless UC is specifically mentioned in the law).
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Is UC federal land or something?!
  - fredoralive 3y ago
    As noted above, the University of California is given special status by a section of California constitution, so it has special status through that. It's presumably clauses like that fact it's governed by the Regents "...subject only to such legislative control as may be necessary to insure the security of its funds and compliance with the terms of the endowments of the university..." that mean it isn't normally affected by new laws. (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CONS&sectionNum=SEC.%209.&article=IX https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...)
    - bwoodcock 3y ago
      And it has its own police, of course. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/fd/c8/c0fdc8612e07d7562b25c0046fb5a6b8.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/fd/c8/c0fdc8612e07d7562b25...
    - ihigxigcogc 3y ago
      All that said, parts of UC are indeed on federal land. Berkeley Lab, for instance.
      - Cheer2171 3y ago
        Berkeley Lab / LBNL is on land owned by the UC, but all the buildings are owned by the feds. Livermore / LLNL is fully owned by the feds.

dekhn 3y ago

Tom was my manager for a while when I was a programmer at UCSF (~20 years after this event). He ran the Computer Graphics Lab which had a bunch of SGIs and DEC Alpha servers to do molecular modelling and I was 'the first linux guy in the group' (they asked me why I used linux when bsd existed). I remember him saying that whenever he licensed a commercial UNIX he insisted the contract include a section giving him access to the source code for the kernel ("because you never know when you will have to recompile the kernel or debug a kernel-space problem"). He's also known for presenting at USENIX on how to enable a hardware-disabled (but physically present) instruction on a cheaper version of the PDP/11. You'd cut a trace in the microcode and add a jumper wire, and presto! you had a fast floating point instruction that was previously disabled.

flyinghamster 3y ago

I always thought there was quite a contrast between UCB giving away BSD versus UCSD making its p-System a commercial product. In the short term, it was probably good for UCSD, but in the long term, the p-System is all but forgotten while BSD trucks along.

pjmlp 3y ago
We get to have its influence on Smalltalk, JVM, MSIL, DEX, and all those that think WASM is the first of its kind.
- flyinghamster 3y ago
  Hmm, which came first, the p-System or ZIL? -checks- Add ZIL to that list as well, as the p-System dates to 1977 and ZIL to 1979.
tingletech 3y ago
I thought BSD being free was part of the consent decree from AT&T vs Regents. The technology transfer office would never sign off on open source license, even in the early 2000s. You would have to make and end run around them to office of general council to start a new open source project, once granting agencies started requesting open source. Even if you did end run around tech transfer, you could not use a license that mentioned anything about patents (UC does not want to give away patents, but giving away copy rights was permissible)