hackertube.io

A Narrative History of BSD, Dr. Kirk McKusick

bsdconferences · talk · Watch on YouTube

Operating systems & kernelsLinux & open-source ecosystemsHistory of computing

What it is

Kirk McKusick gives a narrative history of BSD from its start at UC Berkeley in the late 1970s through the 1980s releases and the lawsuit that led to 4.4BSD-Lite in 1992. It is full of anecdotes from a key developer.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Recommended as an engaging, non-technical history of Unix and BSD from someone who was there, and cited for specific stories like the TCP/IP stack.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2013, last 2017

What HN commenters said

  1. “but the whole thing is excellent.”

    How DARPA funding led to cooperation and open source BSD

    chubot, 2013-10 · Strong recommendation · in “The Government Shutdown Has Revealed Silicon Valley’s Dysfunction Fetish”

  2. “An interesting non-technical talk from the collection is”

    Interesting non-technical talk on BSD history

    networked, 2014-04 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: Your favorite YouTube channels?”

  3. “If you have some time to refresh memory.”

    Refresher on how Unix and BSD spread in universities

    pjmlp, 2017-02 · Recommendation · in “Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: bsd, unix, berkeley, open source, mckusick, tcp/ip

Also recommended by the same people