Hi all,
On Tue, Dec 30, 2025 at 01:53:53AM -0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi Collin,
>
> At 2025-12-29T23:40:11-0800, Collin Funk wrote:
> > It does say 1993, but it also has the following:
> >
> > .\" @(#)sysctl.3 8.1.1 (2.11BSD GTE) 1/13/95
> > .\"
> > .TH SYSCTL 3 "January 13, 1995"
> >
> > The first line being used by SCCS? That is an assumption since I have
> > never used it.
>
> Yup, that's exactly what it is.
>
> https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/what.html
>
> To add precision to my earlier remarks, the "last" Berkeley CSRG release
> appears to have been "4.4BSD Lite Release 2", dated May 1995.
>
> https://gunkies.org/wiki/4.4BSD_Lite_Release_2
>
> The "real work" was by then happening as BSDI, where every developer was
> assured that their deeply principled avoidance of the viral GPL would
> result in billionaire status for them all. Winning!
>
> > > I suggest the Linux man-pages project not attempt to track the
> > > provenance or timeline of 2.11BSD features. It's too much work.
> >
> > And there is probably not much practical benefit, i.e., just some
> > (very few, probably) people interested in the history.
>
> I number myself among those few, but without some sort of tool to keep
> track of 2BSD + 2.11BSD patches on an _automated_ basis to monitor when
> symbols appear and vanish from the source base, I think researching such
> history is a poor use of Linux man-pages contributors' time.
>
> Put differently, I would advocate _against_ Alex mandating that
> contributors to "HISTORY" sections pin down just when a feature showed
> up in 2BSD development specifically. Without the aforementioned tool, I
> think the problem is too hard. The juice is not worth the squeeze.
I certainly won't mandate anything prior to POSIX.1-2001/Cor2-2004
(informally, POSIX.1-2004), as that's the oldest POSIX that is easily
available. I personally don't check any older sources than that
regularly.
Actually, I'm even starting to ignore anything older than POSIX.1-2008,
because for some reason the search engine at
often fails for
"word search" with
Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.
so, I'm giving up on POSIX.1-2004 too. For some reason, the search
engine works fine for more recent POSIX revisions. The Open Group
website is a terrible thing, and part of the reason I decided to stop
supporting the POSIX manual pages. The Austin Group would do well
having a talk with whoever is in charge, and fix several things,
including publication of POSIX.1-2001 and POSIX.1-2002, and actually
open their standards (the source code of the standard; WG21 did publish
the source of the C++ drafts and they got away with that).
However, I won't reject patches documenting 2BSD and 3BSD, if some
people are interested in doing the work.
Have a lovely day!
Alex
>
> If any 2BSD advocates feel slighted, we can always point out that this
> project largely uses the GPL, and that they can't expect anything good
> to come from sick, evil copyleftists anyway. 😈🤘
>
> Surely they can console themselves by counting their money.
>
> Regards,
> Branden
--