diff --git a/share/doc/handbook/handbook.sgml b/share/doc/handbook/handbook.sgml index 01ae7e670715..bf1a7945daba 100644 --- a/share/doc/handbook/handbook.sgml +++ b/share/doc/handbook/handbook.sgml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ - + + @@ -73,7 +74,7 @@ OUTLINE: Introduction FreeBSD In a nutshell - History + &history; About this release FreeBSD now and in the future diff --git a/share/doc/handbook/history.sgml b/share/doc/handbook/history.sgml new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..606aa95dc03d --- /dev/null +++ b/share/doc/handbook/history.sgml @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ + + + +A brief history of FreeBSD + +

Contributed by &a.jkh;. + +The FreeBSD project was started somewhere in the early part of 1992 as +an outgrowth of the "Unofficial 386BSD Patchkit" by the patchkit's +last 3 coordinators: Nate Williams, Jordan Hubbard and Rod Grimes. +David Greenman and Julian Elischer were also lurking in the background +around this time, though they didn't come fully into the project until +a month or two after it was more or less officially launched. The +original working title of the project was also "386BSD 0.5" or "386BSD +Interim", a reference to the fact that the original goal was to +produce an intermediate snapshot of 386BSD. + +386BSD was Bill Jolitz's operating system, which had been up to +that point suffering rather severely from neglect, a consequence +of which was to cause the patchkit to swell ever more +uncomfortably with each passing day. The 3 ex-patchkit +coordinators were all in agreement that the patchkit had to die. +It was rapidly outliving its usefulness, and it would be a far +easier thing to simply do another 386BSD release with all patches +applied and a number of its aging utilities updated. + +These plans came to a rude halt when Bill Jolitz suddenly decided +to withdraw his sanction from the project. It didn't take the +team members long to decide that the goal remained worthwhile +even without Bill's support, and so they adopted the name +"FreeBSD", which was coined by David Greenman. + +Once it also became clear that the project was on the road to +perhaps even becoming a reality, Jordan Hubbard contacted Walnut +Creek CDROM with an eye towards improving FreeBSD's distribution +channels to those many unfortunates without easy access to the +Internet. Walnut Creek CDROM not only supported the idea of +distributing FreeBSD on CD, but went so far as to provide the +project with a machine to work on and a fast Internet connection. +Without Walnut Creek CDROM's almost unprecidented degree of faith +in what was, at the time, a completely unknown project, it is +very unlikely that FreeBSD would have gotten as far, as fast, as +it has today. +