BSDI: BSDI merges with Walnut Creek to deliver BSD/OS, FreeBSD
Cary Petterborg
The New BSDI to Deliver Renowned BSD Operating System Technologies and
Back the Rapidly Growing FreeBSD Open Source Community
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Colorado Springs, Colo., March 10, 2000 - Berkeley Software Design,
Inc. (BSDI) announced today that it has merged with Walnut Creek
CDROM, the distributor of the popular FreeBSD operating system. As a
merged company, the new BSDI unites the leading developers and
suppliers of the Berkeley Software Distribution operating system. BSDI
will develop and deliver advanced BSD® Internet operating systems and
platforms, while providing the open source FreeBSD Project with
technology, backing and expanded support.
BSD operating systems run some of the Internet's most highly
trafficked sites and largest service providers, including Yahoo!TM,
Microsoft's Hotmail and UUNET, an MCI WorldCom company. BSD and Linux
are today's fastest-growing operating systems, according to
Survey.com, the leading eResearch company.
BSD operating system, networking and Internet technologies have
achieved widespread acceptance in the Internet infrastructure. Over
100,000 commercial Internet customers run BSD operating systems on
more than 2,000,000 BSD-powered servers. It is estimated that nine out
of 10 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Network Service Providers
(NSPs) as well as 15 percent of all Internet sites run BSD
systems. BSD operating systems are also embedded in innovative
Internet appliances from Intel, IBM, Lucent, F5 Labs, Hitachi and many
others.
BSDI also announced that Yahoo! Inc. will take an equity interest in
the new company. BSDI will leverage the equity interest to execute on
its plan to build a bridge between open source innovation and
commercial requirements. The equity position will be used to grow
BSDI's presence as a leading provider of the most advanced Internet
operating systems for the Internet infrastructure.
BSDI intends to form a united front for the BSD operating systems. The
company will deliver, support and enhance both BSD/OS and
FreeBSD. BSDI and the FreeBSD Project are jointly evaluating the
technology and market requirements for merging parts of the code bases
for the two operating systems.
The New BSDI's Leadership
-------------------------
"BSD technologies have evolved from a long history of advanced
computing at the core of the Internet," said Dr. Marshall Kirk
McKusick, BSDI's chairman of the board. "The new BSDI will further
enrich the popular BSD computing platform, which is already widely
deployed throughout the world." McKusick was a founding member of the
University of California at Berkeley's Computer Systems Research Group
(CSRG) and is widely acknowledged as a key early contributor to the
open source movement.
To drive the new BSDI's vision, roadmap and continued profitable
growth, Gary J. Johnson has been appointed chief executive
officer. Johnson is an experienced technology executive who has served
in a variety of senior management, sales, marketing and operations
capacities with leading Silicon Valley companies including Tandem
Computers (Compaq), Convergent Technologies (Unisys) and SCO. Johnson
most recently served as president of ClickService Software, a leading
provider of e-commerce, customer relationship management (CRM)
software.
"Innovation in the operating systems arena relies heavily on work in
the open source community," said Johnson. "To date, Linux suppliers,
such as Red Hat Software and VA Linux, have captured impressive
attention for the open source approach to development. At the core of
the Internet, however, BSD technologies are pervasive. The new BSDI
will be working closely with the open source community to ensure that
advanced BSD Internet operating systems and platforms continue to meet
the ever-increasing demands for Internet servers, applications,
appliances and other elements vital to the Internet infrastructure."
In addition to his current responsibilities, Mike Karels, BSDI's vice
president of engineering and the former chief system architect and
principal programmer for the University of California at Berkeley's
CSRG, plans to join the architectural team for the FreeBSD
Project. Karels, who replaced Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy at
the CSRG, is recognized as one of the world's foremost developers of
Unix internals and TCP/IP networking software.
"BSD technologies have contributed to Yahoo!'s continued success by
offering the reliability and level of service necessary to ensure the
availability and scalability we need to keep Yahoo! up and running
around the clock regardless of increasing user demand," said David
Filo, co-founder and Chief Yahoo, Yahoo! Inc.
BSDI Continues to Deliver BSD/OS And FreeBSD;
Expands and Accelerates FreeBSD Open Source Initiatives
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The new BSDI will sell and support FreeBSD, BSD/OSTM, BSDITM Internet
Super Server and value-added BSD product lines through its worldwide
sales channels to Internet infrastructure providers, appliance
developers and business users. BSDI will offer commercially supported
BSD operating systems and related applications, Internet appliance
platforms, technical support and services, open source software
development, and consulting services. The company will deliver its BSD
Internet and networking technologies on leading microprocessor
platforms, including Intel, SPARC, Alpha, PowerPC and StrongARM.
BSDI will continue to develop, enhance and distribute BSD/OS and
FreeBSD according to the terms of the business-friendly, unencumbered
Berkeley software license, which encourages development for open
source software projects, embedded systems, specialized applications,
information appliances and other operating system-enabled products.
BSDI will expand and accelerate Walnut Creek CDROM's FreeBSD open
source initiatives by sharing BSD/OS technical innovations with the
FreeBSD Project and by providing this open source project with
operational and technical support, marketing and funding. BSDI will
continue to distribute packaged versions of FreeBSD and also plans to
develop value-added products based on FreeBSD as well as to provide
technical support, consulting services, educational services and
training for FreeBSD customers. These steps are expected to promote
and invigorate the BSD open source computing movement. The FreeBSD
Project develops the popular FreeBSD operating system and aggregates
and integrates contributed software from more than 5,000 developers
worldwide.
Internet and Open Source Leaders Support the New BSDI
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"We are delighted that BSDI is backing the FreeBSD open source
community," said Jordan Hubbard, chief evangelist and co-founder of
the FreeBSD Project. "The new BSDI has considerable expertise in
commercializing, maintaining, distributing and supporting the world's
most advanced Internet operating systems. We are excited and greatly
looking forward to partnering with BSDI's chief developers, especially
Mike Karels and other original members of UC Berkeley's CSRG, to
accelerate operating system, networking and Internet innovation."
"Open source operating systems like BSD offer better technology and
more choices to the customer," said Eric Raymond, president of the
Open Source Initiative. "I expect BSDI to prove yet again that the
open source and business communities can really to do great things
together, driving the industry forward as dramatically as the
Internet."
"Our research shows that BSD and Linux will increase their share of
enterprise servers by between 100 percent and 500 percent over the
next two years in the fundamental applications that run U.S.
business," said Dave Trowbridge, senior analyst at Survey.com. "This
new company will help ensure that BSD gets its place in the sun, which
its rich heritage and solid technical foundations deserve."
About the Berkeley Software Distribution Operating System
---------------------------------------------------------
Berkeley Software Distribution operating system technologies were
originally developed from 1979 to 1992 by the Computer Systems
Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California at
Berkeley. Berkeley-derived operating system and networking
technologies are at the heart of most modern Unix and Unix-like
operating systems. Today, virtually every major Internet
infrastructure provider uses BSD operating systems. BSD operating
system technologies are used by leading mission-critical network
computing environments and are embedded in Internet appliance
platforms that require advanced Internet functionality, reliability
and security.
About the FreeBSD Project
-------------------------
FreeBSD is a popular open source operating system developed by the
FreeBSD Project and its worldwide team, consisting of more than 5,000
developers funneling their work to 185 "committer" developers. It is
available free of charge from ftp.freebsd.org and also distributed as
a shrink-wrap software product through CompUSA, Fry's, Borders,
Ingram, FreeBSDmall.com and others. FreeBSD includes thousands of
ported applications, including the most popular Web, Internet and
E-mail applications. FreeBSD is distributed under the Berkeley
Software Distribution license, which means that it can be copied and
modified freely. For more information about the FreeBSD Project, visit
www.freebsd.org.
About Walnut Creek CDROM
------------------------
Walnut Creek CDROM was founded in 1991 and began publishing Linux
software in 1992, and BSD software in 1993. The company has a long
history of working closely with the free software community and
providing funding, staffing and other resources for open source
projects. Walnut Creek CDROM publishes numerous software titles,
including FreeBSD and Slackware, the most BSD-like version of Linux.
About Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI)
-------------------------------------------
Leading BSD developers founded Berkeley Software Design, Inc. in 1991
to commercialize BSD technologies and continue the Berkeley Unix
tradition of robust, reliable and extremely secure Internet operating
systems for network computing. By merging Berkeley Software Design,
Inc. and Walnut Creek CDROM, BSDI becomes the world's leading supplier
of advanced Internet operating systems for the Internet
infrastructure. Contact BSDI at in...@BSDI.com or at www.BSDI.com or
call 1-719-593-9445 (toll free: 1-800-800-4273).
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BSD is a registered trademark and BSD/OS and BSDI are trademarks of
Berkeley Software Design, Inc. Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are
registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. All trademarks mentioned in this
document are the property of their respective owners.
Contact:
--------
Kevin Rose
BSDI
801-553-8166
k...@bsdi.com
Jordan Hubbard
FreeBSD Project
925-691-2863
j...@freebsd.org
Brigid Fuller
ZNA Communications
831-425-1581
bri...@zna.com
--
Cary Petterborg Microsoft gives you windows,
mailto:c...@bsdi.com UNIX gives you the whole house.
http://www.bsdi.com/ BSD/OS gives you a mansion.
801-278-2065